Rolling Thunder: A SHIELD Codex
by KhamanV
Summary: Director Coulson's first months in his new role are not destined to be easy ones. When a new threat from an old source sets out to make SHIELD's recovery more difficult than ever, Coulson needs every ally, every tool he can get to draw his opponent out - even if they come at risky costs. Spoilers for S1, mild spoilers for very early S2. (Codex 2)
1. knock knock

(This story takes place after the events of _A Clear and Present Loki_, and well before the Season 2 opener. Spoilers for the start of that season are possible; spoilers for the first are a given. Codex stories are slightly AU by necessity. Also, pre-emptive apologies for slower updates to come than the previous story; I'm spinning an awful lot of plates.)

Rolling Thunder: A SHIELD Codex

_I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? ~ Benjamin Disraeli_

_. . ._

knock knock – who's there

. . .

From the audio transcript, Creech Air Force Base, Northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada:

_[0243.12, Creech ATC]: "Ah, this is Creech, good evening Nellis. We're tracking radar contact, fi – six bogeys coming in fast from your direction, holding SW at Mach 2, you got a squawk on that? They your boys?"_

_[0243.52, Nellis Main Communication Center]: "Negative, Creech Tower, this is Nellis. No squawk on un-ID'd boys. Repeating we do not have radar tracking on your bogeys. They're not ours. Tower, you observing?"_

_[0244.15, Nellis ATC]: "Observing, Captain. Creech, you got eyes in the air?"_

_-CROSSTALK, UNINTELLIGIBLE-_

_[0245.31, unidentified USAF pilot]: "Creech Tower, this is REDACTED, we got radar and visual, verify six bogeys incoming, they're gonna go right over Pahrump in about ten seconds, civs gonna get one hell of a bang at their windows down there. We're following."_

"_[0245.46, Creech ATC]: "Unidentified aircraft, you are in restricted airsp-" _

_*unintelligible, increasingly worried noises* _

_[0246.09, Creech ATC]: "Someone push this upstairs, we're going to have a live fire incident over US mainland airspace. Jesus Christ."_

_[0246.17, Creech ATC]: "Someone go wake up a general or something, what the EDITED is this."_

_[0246.36, unidentified USAF pilot #1]: "Tower, this is REDACTED, flying with REDACTED. These guys aren't doing no Mach 2. They're faster than th-"_

_*unintelligible, fragment of pilot #2 verifying for pilot #1*_

_[0246.37, Nellis ATC]: "Creech, this is Nellis sharing an all hands alert, all hands alert, we're track-"_

_[0246.44, REDACTED]: "Creech, this is REDACTED, there is an abandoned SHIELD depot on the edge of the Valley, our telemetry suggests they're banging right for it. Engage, you have top authorization to enga-"_

_[0247.02, unidentified USAF pilot #2]: *electronic screaming in background* "TOWER THEY JUST WENT WEAPONS HOT!"_

_*static*_

_[0247.07, unidentified USAF pilot #1]: "TOWER TOWER THEY JUST DROPPED PAYLOAD TOWER-"_

_-CROSSTALK-_

_[0247.19, unidentified USAF pilot #1]: "GOT A GODDAMN FIREBALL ON THE HORIZON, HOLY JESUS THEY TOOK OFF LIKE A BAT OUTTA HELL."_

_[0247.25, Creech ATC]: "Nellis, this is Creech! All hands support, I repeat all hands support!"_

_[0247.37, Nellis ATC]: "We're reading you, Creech, flight deck is scrambling. They're gone, we lost them on radar. Still sending our birds, just what the EDITED happened, man. What was that?"_

_[0247.44, Creech ATC]: "Roger that, Nellis. REDACTED, are you-"_

_[0248.12, REDACTED]: "Reading you. Sending in clean-up, ETA is-"_

(_The rest of this transcript has been ordered sealed by REDACTED, this document Top Secret or Level Seven only. If you have received this transcript by accident please contact your commanding or SO immediately._)

. . .

Pahrump, Nevada woke early to a series of sonic booms, townsfolk cursing out the local Air Force for what the morning was certainly going to reveal - several thousand dollars worth of shattered windows and rattled foundations. Tired night workers filed out of their workplace doors to glower at the clear black sky only to clutch at each other as the horizon lit up white fire, fading into gleaming orange. They looked out to where the 372 state highway led to the edge of California, towards the boundaries of the infamous Death Valley, and wondered what the hell had happened. When their heart rates settled down, they lit up the switchboard at Creech to raise havoc, immediately assuming that another test flight, either from there or Nellis out on the other side of Vegas, had gone horribly wrong.

By the time CNN got on the scene at a little after five AM, followed not long after by a sunken-eyed journo from Al-Jazeera America, the US military had collectively decided to let them think that was exactly what happened. They did not consult with the tight-faced new Director of what they still considered to be a defunct and rogue agency. They had nothing to say to him.

. . .

_The US Disciplinary Barracks, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Three days later._

He ran his palm over three days worth of stubble on his chin and debated whether this was the morning he was going to shave it or not. The boys in charge of the prison weren't going to play around on his timetable. If he stretched out the wait too long, they were going to strap him down and clean him up on their terms. That would mean losing the round. Grant Ward always played to win, and since they weren't letting him have a pack of cards, he had to make up his own games.

Ward considered the amount of humorlessness among his current security team and grunted once to himself, feeling the sound of it rattle in his still-gravelly throat. "Well," he rasped, testing the recovery of his voice and finding it acceptable, if slow. "Guess we try and look pretty today." He swung his legs off the bed to stand and took a long, assessing look at his too-pale, sun deprived face in the thick metal mirror. Always slightly distorted. That probably meant something to him on a psychological level, but he didn't care too much about the implications. Right now he was busy just marking the days and thinking up ways to get out. He hadn't come up with much yet. Place was well-built.

He picked up the dull safety razor they allowed him for five minutes every morning, then set it down again when a distant alarm began to _scree, _soft and insistent. _Someone's getting cute, _he thought. _Good luck, you stupid son of a bitch. _If the alarm went off in his part of the complex, your escape attempt was already over. He chewed that fact over for a moment, reflecting on what used to be 'The Castle,' the former main facility of the prison. Torn down several years back for a flashy, updated facility due north, where the country's known military troublemakers chilled out to wait their turn in the justice grinder. Grant didn't get to see any of them. He was in the Oubliette – a set of stone and steel warrens underneath where The Castle had been, and where SHIELD had once joined an agreement to dump their more 'ordinary' waste. He bared his teeth at the mirror while the alarm kept screaming and then decided to hell with it. The morning crew could shave him, if they cared so damn much.

Something thumped outside his narrow cell and he quickly flicked his glance towards the steel-reinforced door. He picked the razor back up, his thumb rubbing over the carefully dulled blades and figuring in the worst case, if someone was coming to mess with him, the eyes were always a good choice.

Another noise, a _thunk! _that had that distinct sound of bone colliding with hard stone. The metal door dented right after and Ward's eyes widened a little, stepping back once and knowing he had nowhere to go but through whatever was strong enough to dent Oubliette construction. He thought of Dr. Banner and allowed a grim moment of hoping like hell that wasn't what was coming for him.

The door flung open, bent sharply at the hinges. _Oh, this is actually way worse, _Ward thought, recognizing the figure, tall as himself yet somehow seeming vastly bigger, from a thousand tense briefings given by both HYDRA and SHIELD. Then the grinning, raging alien demigod flung him unceremoniously up against the wall.

. . .

Loki's pale hand kept Ward's face firmly in place, one of the human's own hands reaching up to slap frantically at his thin but steely wrist. He dug his thumb into the soft hollow of the man's cheek above the jawbone, the pain forcing Ward to still. "Careful now," he hissed at the prisoner, eyes alight with delight in the white face, floating above his armor of black and green and gold. "I might think you're not happy to see me."

Ward grunted in surprise, the only sound he could manage as Loki forced his face to turn from one side to the other, assessing him with narrowed grey-green eyes. "Oh, yes. You're the one I'm looking for. Grant Ward. HYDRA, I presume." The jaw hung in a jackal's wide smile. "I am Loki of Asgard, and you may rejoice. I am here to free you for my purpose, and my purposes are always glory." He rattled a low laugh and released Ward, watching him slump coughing to the ground. "Catch your breath and then you follow me. If you do not, I will break both your legs and carry you. I'll allow you that choice, for I'm feeling magnanimous today."

"Why?" Ward rasped.

"I _already _gave you an answer, you feckless and little mortal thing." Loki sniffed distastefully. "You are a tool, but I don't need my tools pristine, if you catch my meaning." He snapped thin fingers at the human, impatient. "That's enough air. Get up and move."

Ward balked, took a swipe with the razor still clenched in his fist. He'd kept in shape, thought it was worth the shot. Loki easily slapped it away, the force of his swipe breaking the thin blue plastic, then grabbed Ward's wrist and bent it until he saw the unwilling muscles in the jaw clench. "That hurts you. You don't want to show me, but I know all the ways to make your little bodies _hurt._" That smile again. It sent a ripple of gooseflesh down Ward's arms. _Mad as a bag of cats. _HYDRA said he was interesting. SHIELD, when it was livelier, had a stop-on-sight, kill-if-possible order.

_This is the being that killed Coulson._ Something must have showed in his face, as Loki leaned in close again. "I can see you know me better than to doubt what I can do to mortal flesh. _Time _is not on our side, and I tell you it never is."

"What do you want with me?"

"It rambles, testing my patience." Loki stepped to the doorway and looked down both stretches of the long hallway. "You hold the key to information I want, other tools for my revenge. I killed that little whelp and he lives. Not only does he live, but he _thrives._" He pulled himself back into the tiny cell and fixed Ward with a slow, sober stare. "I thought I did my best. I was thorough. This outcome... offensive, isn't it? Perhaps you can give me clues. Well, we'll discuss this later, as an insect may plead with the seasons and be humored by a mild spring. I am easily pleased this day. Keep it that way, and it will go better for you. I can and do reward those that serve me well." His lips quirked humorlessly. "Come now. Else I'll start with the left femur, and then the right. All the same to me."

Loki stepped into the hallway and whirled to give Ward a theatrically deep bow, his hands reaching to the left side of the corridor. "I've already secured an exit. Your decision?"

With a last second of hesitation, knowing Loki's given choice for a terrible one either way, he hurried after the alien.


	2. everything before

2\. everything before - everything next

. . .

_Then:_

"You want to know what the really weird thing about this is?" Coulson watched the green-grey eyes flicker up questioningly over the rim of his glass as the demigod drained it. "You _actually will_ pick up the phone when I jingle. I can't get anyone else to call back in a reasonable timeframe. If I ever throw a picnic, getting anyone in that tower to RSVP is gonna suck. Much less offer to bring the potato salad."

"Not even Stark? It's his technology. I have an excuse in easy boredom, but he seems rather fond of his toys." Loki sloshed the glass around in his hand, knocking loose its last drops of rum and dwindling ice and then set it down at the edge of the table with a soft clink.

"Are you kidding?"

"Typically. It _might _help if they knew it was truly you calling, as an aside. I can understand why they would avoid your predecessor." He ignored the human's grimace and gestured for the waitress with a lazy flick of his long, pale hand. "So. _Director _Coulson. You were supposed to have a pleasant few months while I arsed off around the backwaters of the galaxy. Instead I come back, things are somehow in further disarray through, stunningly, no fault of mine, and that Fury's left the clean-up to you. Are we drinking tonight for matters past owed, or because you're having quite the interesting time of it?"

Coulson fiddled with his own empty glass, pretending to debate with himself whether or not he really wanted another vodka and tonic and knowing that he absolutely did. "Can't it be both?"

Loki snorted at the familiar line, gently derisive. He slouched comfortably against the soft backrest of the dim booth, absently smoothing the front of his suit jacket. "And miss some future opportunity for more alcohol, one of a handful of things you people do correctly on this planet? No."

"Okay, you have a point."

"Do you at least get to comp this to some sort of operational expense?"

"Loki, I don't even have a Human Resources desk at the moment. I could barely be the director of a high school marching band. We're kinda rebuilding from the basement up, and I'm basically doing it on coupon clipping and floating checks." He grimaced at Loki's world-weary sigh.

"Then I have the bill tonight. You can't e'er say I never do anything for your species." He considered, glancing down at the fresh glass of amber liquid placed before him. "Well, maybe you couldn't before. Or perhaps marked my score up to a draw, at least."

"I received a formal complaint by Dr. Strange, by the way." He couldn't help a grin at Loki's outright laugh. "I had to tell him that since SHIELD was no longer an active agency..."

"You stiffed him on the damage costs. I am duly amazed."

"I didn't _want _to." Coulson spread his hands. "I can't afford it at the moment. We owe him a big-ass favor, I put it that way. It didn't cut a lot of ice."

"Can't you just sell one of your recovered toys and buy a city block?"

Coulson arched an eyebrow. "Oh, which one? The reverse-engineered alien death ray that has no business being distributed to an active military anywhere on Earth? The incredibly rare alloy that drives you crazy if you look at it too long? The, I don't know, forty-seven different chemical compounds we have in just one currently defunct joint that could either cure cancer or mutate all life it comes into contact with?"

"I'd think DuPont might spot you a decent check for that batch," Loki deadpanned.

"God, I think they would." Coulson knocked back his new round of vodka and winced as it burned down his throat.

"You could pawn your car."

Coulson lifted a single finger, his teeth still gritted from the drink. "Now you're pushing it."

"I am. I apologize." Loki tilted his head slightly, picking out details in the human's tense behavior, the unusual shortness of his humor. "This is no mere meeting for pleasure's sake. This is business. You have a need. And you call me. I'm _touched._"

Director Coulson set down his latest empty glass and fixed Loki's gaze with his before picking up the data tablet from his side and pushing it across the table. He tapped the surface of it with a single finger, bringing up the transcript for the demigod to read.

Loki picked up the tablet, rereading it closely for more details. "Well, that ended predictably. What did this unidentified pilot mean, not Mach 2?"

"Some of the fastest birds we've to this day put in the air in any stable fashion tap out around Mach 2.5, or two and a half times the speed of sound as we've mathed it. We've publicly gone up to Mach 5 on experimental unmanned scramjets. We've made a lot of strides in general avionics, but speed is always frisky. Physics likes to have an opinion, and that opinion isn't real high when it comes to human reflexes and durability at that speed. We've processed the data from both bases and it looks like when the enemy squad took off, in _manned _aircraft, they topped mach _4."_

"I'm gathering this is impressive to humans in a concerning sort of way."

"These weren't our birds. Nothing we've got on record is matching what buzzed Nevada, which would be kinda hilarious if you were real up on your Area 51 and Groom Lake lore. Well, then again, you _are _some of that lore." Coulson leaned forward, his hands clasping together on the table. "Anyway. The turnaround for technology on that scale means this was not an overnight hobby someone slapped together. These jets are the result of a long-term project, one that _probably _got a boost a few years back."

"And we're back to giving me the eye for letting the Chitauri sniff around your planet." Loki flicked from the transcript to other notes available on the tablet, his voice droll. "They would have gotten here eventually, you know."

"I'm not interested in picking a fight on that. You flew their gear, can any of what we recorded in Nevada match?"

"You already suspect the answer, and the answer is almost certainly yes, with some work." Loki set the tablet down and picked up his glass for a sip while he considered his explanation, using it to gesture at Coulson for emphasis now and again. "Chitauri propulsion systems were elegantly designed, if ugly to behold. Easy to maintain and use, as well. They wanted stable hardware for their less-intelligent drones to manage, and that means humans could certainly reverse engineer some of their vehicles. You're a persistent little lot; it'd be far less trouble than some of the things you've remade. But you would need a base understanding of avionics, yes, to get there. Your HYDRA friends, I assume you're thinking of." The empty glass settled back to the tabletop.

Coulson unclasped his hands, pulling his own glass in front of him to tap idly against it. "Bingo. We flushed them out and they promptly went dark, but their motif is focused on popping back up. Their whole shtick is 'cut one head off-'"

"Two more emerge. I know the legend. You're looking at small incursions now, being harried."

"Remaining sleeper cells, yeah. I think our Adytum facility, there on the edge of Death Valley, got hit by one of these. My worry is when they'll hit next. And where. This flight squadron is bad news, especially if they get it in their heads to start acts of outright terrorism on civilian territory. Our projections say they will."

Loki considered that. "If I can ask, what was the focus of this facility?"

"It was a hardened data center, not anything sexy. We've got redundancies for what was stored there, but it was top level intel. We lose more facilities of that stripe and then we do start getting holes in our permanent records. That _will _set back my efforts to rebuild the agency by an awful frickin' lot." Coulson looked dour. "And as surgical as this strike was, they'll know where to go to start causing exactly that, too."

"You're several steps behind, then. Your enemies are entrenched, well-hidden, and have range to strike. They still have a functioning network, some form of organizational structure, and plenty of time to effect chaos on their wounded prey."

"That's about the incredibly depressing size of it."

"Well, you clearly didn't call me to a biker bar in the middle of yon country's heartland to lift your spirits. And I'm not an engineer." Loki crossed his arms and lifted a single eyebrow, waiting for Coulson to meander towards his actual point.

"I figure _somebody _should have a good time out of all this, besides HYDRA." Coulson began his thin little smile. "And I also figure you're always up for a good time, preferably at someone else's possibly painful expense."

"Oooo, now you have my attention entire." Loki looked delighted. "What is it you'd like me to do?"

Coulson laid out the gist of his plan.

Loki promptly ordered a fresh bottle of top shelf whiskey for the two of them.

. . .

_Now:_

Ward barely tasted the cheap sandwich, chewing mechanically while never taking his eyes off the lurking alien demigod. Loki was sitting deceptively casually on a bench in the darkest corner of the filthy hotel room. Staring at him like a biology experiment, that jackal smile stretched in the pale face from where it floated atop the neatly kept black suit he now wore for any who might spot him. Ward kept thinking of the time he snuck into his family's living room, all his siblings asleep, to see his parents watching the end of _Alien. _Watching the sleek, black horror peel itself from the pipework, looming over the comparatively helpless Ripley while she knew she had nowhere to run. He'd had nightmares for a month. Would have been two months, if his parents had caught him.

Now an adult, he was not enjoying picturing himself in Ripley's place. Something about the madman's shadow seemed to touch every corner of the room. The last piece of stale bread went down with a dry swallow. "Thanks for the meal," he said, finding some stratagem in at least being polite.

Nothing. Just the glittering gaze. Ward returned it evenly. Out of his cell, getting his bearings back, he had more options. He could get away. Or... the alien _could_ be useful. The last he'd known, Loki had been dragged back to Asgard in chains. Who knows what toys he'd come back to Earth with this time? It could buy him back into the organization's good graces, even without Garrett. Or even better... buy his way towards SHIELD. And Skye.

Ward looked away to get rid of his trash, forced himself to not jump when the voice slithered behind him. "Don't think so much about running. You're not half as clever as you like to think. You'll ever be in the shadow of that Romanoff woman."

He felt a rattled flush run under his jaw, hidden by the growing scruff. Son of a bitch did like to go right for a nerve. "I don't like being compared to old news. And, hey, _she _still stole a march on you, as I recall."

Loki gave a dry laugh. "You think you could do better. _I _started this day a free man, and by my efforts, you're ending it as one. You can try my patience, little human, or you can give me what I want and I'll ensure that you _keep _that freedom."

Fine. No harm in finding out what the next stage of the nut's game was. He tried to ignore the lingering unease the stare was giving him. "What do you want?"

"I want my _stuff _back." Loki snarled the colloquial word with distaste. "Or at least see what you conniving little mongrels did with it."

Ward spread his hands, not sure what he was getting at. "Th-"

The gleaming eyes narrowed. "You people crawled through the corpses of my servants, took their weapons, their equipment. _My _weapons. I've been watching. Waiting. And I see what you lot have done with them." He flared his nostrils when the human shook his head. Something dark crackled in the air, full of magic and open dislike. "Useless after all. I'll find someone else."

Ward put a hand out when the demigod rose, wracking his brains for something to delay him with. The report said he hadn't hesitated to kill Coulson. Dozens dead in seconds when he'd first teleported in. Ward wanted his own neck in one piece. "Wait. Okay. Wait. Uh, the Chitauri stuff. Yeah, I'm out of the loop, but-"

A looming step, the disinterested stare. "Your lot seek to enrich your own armies on my coin. Dare to think they can take the skies, flash their own power. I've seen them. And what after?" The pale face darkened. "I won't brook upstarts dipping their toes where they have no right."

Glimmers of things he'd known through Garrett tied together. "_Skies._" He uttered a little laugh, surprised out of his threatened state. "They must have done it. Actually got the reverse-engineering to work."

The pale hand reached out and seized at the collar of his shirt, forcing him to look into Loki's face, now far too close to his. The expression bade him to speak, or die.

"Blackwing. It's the Blackwing Squad you're talking about. I think."

"Explain."

. . .

_"__HYDRA likes a full buffet on the table. Land, sea, air; if they make a move, they want total dominance. Nothing left to chance. It's the skies that have been the weakest link for them for a while. So they collected pilots. Good ones, made them even better."_

_"__I don't care about that."_

"We do!" Skye shook the receiver while Ward stammered to get his place in his ramble back. "Ugh. I know he's gotta stay in character, but that would still be useful intel. Also, if Loki could chuck him through a wall when he's done blabbing, that'd be great."

Triplett plucked the device from her and resettled on the couch with a bag of nachos out of a vending machine in his other hand. They were in another room of the cheap hotel, far on the other side of the place. "Chill. We'll get what we need."

_"__Okay. They were working on a lot of stuff. Pilots and planes both, yeah. The plane project got a boost a while back, I think that's the salvage we got from- from your troops. I haven't heard a lot lately, wasn't sure where they were on progress. They used to have trouble maintaining stability in the engines. I don't-"_

_"__Four days ago, your friends used my technology to blow up some pointless scrap of SHIELD territory. A move I must privately applaud on principle, but regardless. You now have my attention, like it or no."_

_"__Look, I'm off the board-" _The receiver picked up the sounds of people scraping around. Ward was probably trying to back away. Skye grinned, picturing the possibility of the towering, freaky demigod going full New York Assault on Cap'n Hitler Youth. Not quite as directly satisfying as watching May's glorious beatdown, but hey. She was all about repeats on that show.

_"__I'm putting you back on it." _Loki's voice came through, clear and firm. It should, his transmitter was nicely hidden inside the suit jacket by cloth and magic both. He'd refused a subdermal chip with the dry response "I'm not ready to take our relationship to that level yet," but agreeably wired up otherwise. _"You'll take me to this Blackwing. I want to see what they did with my toys."_

_"__Lok- My lord." _Triplett and Skye looked at each other and rolled their eyes at the gambit. She nicked a cheesy dusted nacho out of the crinkly bag when he offered, munching on it as Ward kept his voice low and cautious. _"They may have moved base."_

_"__Then we will find their trail. And then you will have your place back at their table. And if they do not want you, and you remain useful... you might have a place at mine."_

More stressed chatter. The pair of agents dutifully took notes and passed them along the coded channels back to the Playground, where Coulson would be sketching out the next phase.


	3. office politics

3\. office politics – ninja turtles

. . .

"That's wild." Billy Koenig gestured at the central datascreen as Skye and Triplett's notes came in, the feed showing wide angle coverage of the surveilled hotel. "I mean, that's just _wild." _He gave a little giggle and turned to regard his boss, who was seated at his desk with a vastly more serious expression on his face. He cleared his throat as Coulson continued to double-check the incoming data on a separate tablet. "Seriously, that guy? The double-dip sundae bane of New York? If I wasn't right here, I wouldn't believe it. Director Fury would never have tried this. He thought you were nuts for even talking to him, months ago."

"I need every operative I can get on this. Every tool and every possible ally, Koenig. If we fall behind now, this early in the game, we might not get back up on the board. That means some calls others might think are hinky."

"Yeah." The stockier agent shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "And, I mean, I got some of this from Fury at the time... he _did _live up to the whole second chances thing. That you, uh, do."

"He did. And this time, he directly chose to help when asked."

"Still risky, sir."

Coulson's mouth tightened into a thin line at Koenig's respectfully questioning tone. "This isn't about trust, Koenig. I'm smart enough to not make it about that. Part of why we wired him up out there in Kansas instead of bringing him anywhere near here. Instead, it's about respect, and much more importantly, I need someone in there where I don't have to worry about getting them back out. He's more than self-reliant; he'd find it insulting if I had to call in back-up for him. It's not like it was during the endgame on that Darkhold thing. He's in good shape right now, and in a good mood."

"Yeah. But it'd be real bad if he turns."

"He won't turn. Not now. It'd be too cliché, plus I still owe on a bar tab. He's being insistent about that. And as it stands, he's already given us an advantage we didn't have five hours ago. I want everything the archive has on this 'Blackwing Squad.' If we have anything."

"Yessir. Um. Can I ask a question, though?"

Director Coulson glanced up from the smaller screen on his desk, arching one eyebrow.

"...Does our former Agent Ward get that second chance dealie?"

Coulson said nothing. His gaze flickered up to the interlinked Playground datascreens again, settling on the one that showed the lower labs and the constant, regular flurry of activity that flowed through them. It also showed Fitz where he stood alone, occasionally pacing and murmuring to himself, a stack of specimen trays in disarray. The sink nearest to him was filled with broken glass.

Koenig followed his boss's glance and winced as Coulson finally spoke behind him.

"Loki earned his, against every expectation I made. When _he _does, you can ask me that question again. Until then... don't say his name in here unless it's absolutely necessary. I'd appreciate it. The promotion's already giving me the acid reflux something fierce."

"I got some Tums some-"

"Koenig. Squad. Thank you."

"Yessir."

. . .

She knew he was in the doorway, but kept going anyway. Three tense steps, a slight turn, the elegant swivel of the stick. Another three steps, the turn, stretch, and a single, slow exhale. Control and tone, the perfect regimentation of mind and body. Impatience put aside. Chaos tamed. The seconds ticked as she approached the end of her solitary exercise session. Only silence in the air around her.

Agent May's watch beeped precisely as she finished her routine with a slight bow to her reflection in the gym's mirror.

Coulson broke the stillness with a light, airy drawl. "So, we need to talk about the fine details on how we're gonna pull our wayward charge back into custody when this part's over. I figure there'll be some slightly thrilling heroics, a fairly flashy distraction, and at least one opportunity for you to kick him in the heinie a few more times. It'll be cool. Like old times."

She permitted a slight tightening of the corners of her mouth as she slotted the practice stick back into the rack. "We? Phil, you're not going out."

"Gee, Mom, I'm only going across the street to Timmy's for some chips and to play with his new Ninja Turtles."

She turned to face him, slumped casually in the doorway with a wry smile that matched his deadpan words. She could tell his hands were now balled into fists inside his suit pockets – not in anger, just that new, weary frustration. She sighed, understanding. "It's a risk we can't afford."

"And it's a risk we've pretty much got no choice but to take. Skye and Triplett are staying on Loki at least until he gets inside this group. I don't want her to have to deal with our prisoner just yet, anyway. She's not ready, and I want to know the vault's utilities are all fully operational. Simmons _just _got into place. Fitz..." He took one hand out and flapped it. She knew the score there, showed it with a frown. "I don't trust any of the new hires yet. Not with this. It's you and me on cleanup duty; just a minor odd job."

"Then I'll get it done myself."

"I'd like him put in the vault in one piece. It'll be messy if we just start with the head... a few chunks of leg..."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm more professional than that, Phil, and you know it. If something goes wrong and we lose you right now, we lose SHIELD."

That made him pause a little.

"I know you're tired of being cooped up in here." May took a clean towel from a cart near the door and draped it along the back of her neck, her thin but strong hands toying with each end as she talked. "That's the cost you're having to pay, while we go out and pay the other ones."

"I can't ask people to do what I'm not willing to."

"You _are, _though. Always. Nobody doubts it, only you. But the risk to reward ratio here is not what it was." She gave him a smile, genuinely sympathetic. "My loyalty is to SHIELD, Phil, and that means someone's gotta tell you the crappy true things. Right now it's that you're grounded."

"No Ninja Turtles for me." A wry grin, designed to hide the forlorn one.

She laughed a little, trying to cheer him. "We've got plenty of chips, though. I hear the movie blew anyway."

"Yeah, well. The cartoon show's pretty good. I caught Triplett watching a few episodes down in the lounge last week, ended up sitting through another couple." He pulled a hand out of his pocket and gestured down the hall with his thumb. "You want to cool down and get your debrief? Koenig came back with some information off of what Loki already got for us."

"There a lot?"

"Not yet."

She gave the towel another tug, gestured at him with one end. "Just walk with me down to the showers, then. Tell me on the way."

. . .

They kept a steady pace down the grey industrial halls. No one else was wandering them. The Playground was still on a skeleton crew – Coulson was still negotiating with some ex-SHIELD forces to fill the ranks, but they weren't on site yet. May found it kind of pleasant, actually. Except for the intermittent rattle in the central air circulator. Koenig asked her once if it was 'harshing her meditative groove.' Once.

Director Coulson tapped his tablet and held it so she could see the few repeating seconds of footage. Six unmarked planes, standard F-16s, but doing some pretty high end stunts in the air that clearly pushed the limits of the hardware. As the footage looped, two of them broke formation and did a high-speed inversion. Nice moves. "The Blackwing Squad. We have them listed as an off-the-books experimental flight team with extensive experience with cutting edge avionics. Project's been in various stages since the Eighties and was unofficially closed by Nick Fury not long after we started looking more heavily at unmanned craft instead. Looking over Koenig's files, I really don't think this project was _ever _ours. Or shut down."

He swiped over to a SHIELD personnel file. "This is Joe Manfredi, the lead pilot on the project. Did a couple tours in the Air Force, got recruited into SHIELD right around the time disco died. Check out his dad."

She plucked the tablet from him and opened the file, summing it up aloud. "Silvio Manfredi, Italian businessman living the American Dream in the wake of World War II. He's an importer, makes a decent pile of money. I like the picture, it's very rustic." She flashed the tablet at him, the sleek and silver-haired man with a ruddy grandchild on one knee and a bowl of plump heirloom tomatoes gracefully placed on the red and white checkered tablecloth next to him.

"Check the next file."

She did, pursing her lips at the small red HYDRA logo on this file's header. "Turns out Silvio sold contraband arms extensively to the Red Skull while still living high on the hog in Italy, under the project code 'Silvermane.'" She handed the tablet back, glancing down at the other picture of Silvio – a lean, wolfy man sitting atop a crate of high ordinance while talking to someone. Even from the back, she could identify the man's crisp black uniform. "Made a pile of money off both HYDRA and Mussolini. So we cleared his not-at-all potential security risk of a kid to fly these neat, snazzy planes for us."

He tucked it under his arm, keeping pace. "Yeah, I don't think we did. Some mole rubber-stamped him in on someone else's marching orders, which I would never have believed except that we were both there when SHIELD imploded with jerk moles everywhere."

"Make it worse for me, Phil."

"From what Loki's already pulled out, Manfredi's happy pack of a-holes have been activated, flying new planes boosted with reverse-engineered Chitauri tech, and the pilots themselves are enhanciles. I don't have a lot of information on that last part, yet, just one vague reference. But I'm gonna go ahead and assume the worst. It's not like we haven't been getting kicked around by enhanciles and the gifted every few weeks or so already."

She sighed. "Oh, good. That's only slightly terrible, instead of completely and apocalyptically terrible."

He grinned at her. "You've been around me too much."

"So what's the plan?"

"I was thinking we'd take Lola, grab some Chinese takeout on the way, standard abduction kit in the trunk..."

"Phil."

He did a scooting little two-step, attempting to show he was joking. She didn't buy it. "They're on the road now; Skye and Triplett are on a two mile trace. Loki's driving, which is frankly terrifying to contemplate, and they're all currently somewhere on the fringes of Montana. We're waiting to see if there's gold in those hills or if the SHIELD villain road trip has a few more stops to make before I, of course, send you to pick up our wayward son."

"Of course."

He stopped at the doorway to the communal showers and smiled at her as she pulled the towel from her neck. "You're absolutely right, May. It'll be safer for everyone if I stay here."

She smiled back at him, not buying it for a second. She considered yanking a sparkplug out of Lola, quickly dismissed the tactic as possibly causing the wrong outcome. He'd just get madder. "I'm glad to hear it, Director. Keep me updated, I'm ready to go anytime."

"Yes, ma'am." A little bob of his head and he turned to go. She watched him go down the hall, keeping a steady, even gait. No trembling. At least there was that. Their current blessings were few, but at least there was that.


	4. i want to break free

4\. I want to break free – friends will be friends

. . .

When dealing with the rental liability paperwork much later on, just before foisting the whole mess off on Coulson (who almost certainly knew better than he all the annoying little minutiae these people cared about in regards to their archaic machinery) Loki decided to blame the CD – _Queen: Greatest Hits Vol 2, _sadly lacking his favorite song - for what happened to the car.

He wasn't entirely lying.

The rental agency didn't buy it, but he wasn't entirely lying.

. . .

Ward stayed mute in the creaky leather passenger seat of the rented mid-class car, watching the late night sky slowly drift by. Loki had returned to the cheap motel with it early the previous morning, muttering vaguely dire pronouncements about the rental facility and their refusal to give him an upgrade to the luxury class. He didn't bother explaining to his wrapped-up and slightly battered captive how or why he'd come to bother with human travel necessities. Between that and the clean, well-tailored suits he kept wearing, it was clear enough that the alien felt the need for at least _some _subtlety.

What Ward couldn't fathom was why the CD was on its fifth goddamn repeat of the day. Oh, Loki had switched it off for a little while, picking up news off the satellite radio that had come with the rental. But when he'd heard what he'd cared to, it was back to Freddie Mercury and the seemingly unending road into the western wilderness of Montana. It was like staring into eternity, and finding eternity staring back, and it had a pretty killer 70's mustache.

By now, he'd set that mustache on fire if he was given a chance.

He'd had no choice but to give up the last known location he could think of for the Blackwing – a supposedly neglected and remote airstrip nested somewhere in the Rocky Mountain trenches near Flathead Lake. According to his last, best data, the squadron had moved there after some kind of in-house kerfluffle at their previous location in Texas. That much seemed to satisfy the demigod. Beyond that, he mostly disregarded the human's presence. He allowed for occasional stops, carefully monitoring Grant's interactions with any staff at the stations.

The implication was clear. Another attempt to fight him, and what was left of Ward would be shoved into a thin mailer addressed to nowhere. The threat was growing old, however. HYDRA wasn't going to just let this guy walk into the place. Loki was going to need him, had cajoled him with an offer of, what? Galactic conquest or whatever else the nut had in mind?

Ward glanced to his left, watching the pale thumb tap in time to _Who Wants to Live Forever _for the seventh time in almost as many hours. He was coming to fixate on his other idea, shoring it up with a little more substance and a lot of reliance on luck. SHIELD was still out there, trying to piece itself back together. That was a given. As long as Nick Fury and Phil Coulson lived, so did the idea behind the organization. Loki's apparent need for subtlety underlined that. They'd drop whatever they could on the alien ASAP, if they knew he was tooling around out in the middle of the US.

_If_ they knew.

Loki would have to get angry, slip up. Show himself. He could think of a few ways to drive the alien into that. Reports said he could be touchy. Arrogant. It was how he had been pushed around last time, for what little that had gained. He liked things to go his way, got flaky when they didn't. No _way_ anything had changed that much. Guys like Loki, that cocksure and hellbent on their actions, didn't change. Not their style. Ward was willing to bet everything on it.

A stunt like what he had in mind would likely mean he'd lose his own fresh freedom, but hey. It still got him where he wanted to be. He'd just have to be fast, try to survive as long as he could. He looked up at a random, lone cloud in the otherwise starry sky and curved a tiny smile within his beard.

. . .

When the CD began to repeat for the sixth interminable time, with Ward full of fresh hate for the classic rock band and a deep desire to never listen to _Under Pressure _again so long as he lived, he abruptly reached out and jerked the steering wheel of the car as hard to the right as he could. All he hoped for was to catch Loki by enough surprise to careen them out of control for a few seconds.

The car whirled, still going seventy miles an hour straight towards a ditch that would flip the vehicle, and a set of rocks along it that would stop its slide. He braced himself mentally and relaxed his body physically, ready for the impact.

The crunch of splitting metal and the sparks of breaking engine parts filled his world for a few seconds. He thought he blacked out for another couple, then shook his head sharply, trying to get his bearings back. He thought the car's wrecked frame was still screaming in insult at first, before realizing the sound was in his own ears.

Bleary and half-stunned, nostrils full of blackening stink and spilling oil, he looked around. It was difficult to squint through the rolling smoke from where he was. He rolled over, feeling a crunch under him. He froze, wondering if it was bone. Looking down showed him it was a piece of the windshield. He'd been thrown free of the wreck almost entirely, with no major injuries. There was no sign of Loki through the flickering highbeams. Probably on the other side of the car. The Asgardian wouldn't stay stunned long.

He staggered up and began to jog down the ditch back towards the last truck stop he'd seen, fully expecting Loki to catch up and hoping he'd at least make it to the distant lights before he would.

. . .

Skye patted frantically at Triplett's arm, the red dot on the tablet blinking in alarm at her. She looked up at the road ahead on reflex, their tailed target too far ahead to see. "They've stopped."

He arched an eyebrow, not worried yet. "Emergency potty break? They've been on road food and soda, always goes right through you."

"They were going at least seventy, dropped straight to nothing." She pinched in the image on the tablet, her eyes widening as she saw the tracker's trail on the map. "Oh crap. Showing a sharp turn off the road just before stopping."

"Okay, that's bad." Agent Triplett fished his cell out of his jacket's pocket and rang the Director's emergency line.

. . .

Loki lay half out of the crumpled wreck of the car, the twisted metal blocking his view as he listened to the human pad off with a hurried limp. He wasn't angry yet. Certainly the car was a total loss – a ding on his current pseudonym's record which he would have to get Coulson to clear off for him. But depending on which way the obnoxious little thing ran, he might still be of some use to the mission. He lifted his head, ignoring the already fading pinch in his neck to establish Ward's direction.

No, the idiot was going back towards the last scrap of civilization they'd passed. A trot of some six miles or so. He pieced that together with errant theories in his head and things Coulson had advised him of, immediately realized the human's hastily slapped together game.

"Oh for all the love of-_ really?_" he muttered up at the sky, his face occasionally lit up red from a back blinker. "Sell me back to SHIELD. That figures, actually." He sighed and wriggled out of the wreck, pausing as fabric tore. His knuckles whitened further, realizing that his suit was also going to be a loss as he looked down at himself.

The temptation to kill the troublesome thing bubbled hot inside him. He grit his teeth and swallowed it back down, remembering Coulson's earnest request – "_Don't kill him. I need him alive."_

_"You think I might do such a terrible, usually irreversable thing?" _He had asked the question with real amusement.

_"He's gotten kind of obnoxious since he went to the dark side. He's pretty punchable, frankly. And if _you_ punch him, his head might just pop clean off. Not that I have spent any time imagining that."_

He'd spread his hands, leaning back against the booth's wall. _"I'm not seeing the problem? You clearly dislike him greatly."_

_"Alive, Loki. Please."_

He yanked himself out the rest of the way, catching a heel on the smashed window. He kicked at it, spending a taste of his irritation on metal instead of the fleeing human. The car's frame squeaked in protest, denting into a crater where he struck. "Fine," he muttered, digging into his suit jacket's pocket for the burner phone he'd hidden. His fingers flew across the buttons. "I'll only drop-kick him halfway across the plains when I catch up."

His call went through instantly_. "Loki. Triplett called. I've been advised of the situation and am preparing to intercept."_

"Oh, no problem, take your time," he sang out airily, picking out the path Ward took through the off-road yellowing grass and ambling towards it. "I'll have him back in hand within a half hour. Figure I'll let him feel like he's winning something before I crush his dreams."

_"Any idea what he's up to?"_

"He wants to sell me to _you _on a silver platter with toast points somehow." He stretched his mouth into an annoyed jackal's grin at nothing during the long silence on the other end of the line.

_"I... should have seen that coming."_

"What I thought as well! After I realized I was in a ditch with a wrecked suit. Keep the young pair back if you will. I can handle this, no need to risk blowing the game yet." He rolled his eyes at the fresh batch of silence. "And he will be kept alive, since I can hear you thinking it desperately at me."

_"We're still going to intercept and take charge of him by dawn. If that's his play, no way he's going to let himself be dragged to the finish line without trying to be a pain again. And if you do get him there? He'll make a mess of that leg of the operation, too. In the absolute worst case, you wind up exposed. And I really don't wanna try and explain what's been going on to Stark and the rest yet."_

Loki picked up his pace, spreading his magical senses. Yes, the human was already about half a mile ahead. "Whatever you like. Can you bring that spare suit I left when you - I don't know what you're planning, don't tell me – drop on us so heroically? Rescuing yon damaged human from the mad, vicious alien warlord, no doubt. I'll try to ham it up for you."

_"You don't really need to try. It seems to come kinda natural."_

"You're lucky I _almost_ like you." Loki hung up on Coulson with a swipe of his thumb.

. . .

Coulson looked at the phone in his hand with a grin, reading the words _CALL ENDED: 2:23,_ and then up at Agent May as she entered the garage with a go-bag slung over her shoulder. He raised both brows up towards his high hairline when she blurted, "I knew I should have pulled that sparkplug."

He gestured to Lola with his free hand. "Glad you didn't. We've got less than three hours till sunrise hits Montana. I want the twerp in the trunk by then. With her brand-new engine, we can get there in two or less, depending on air traffic. There's a lot through the trench, but maybe not where we'll be."

"We." She crossed her arms, annoyed with the urgency Phil was trying to attach to the situation. It smacked of an open excuse to go out and take care of things personally. The worst part of it was, he could argue his case. They had a decent reason to move quick. Koenig had been re-running possible projections for another assault, and they were unhappy ones.

"If I had the time to send you via more normal means, I'd have stuck with your plan." He smiled. "But we need to hurry, and that means we take my car. And nobody drives my car but me."

"You could at least _try_ to look like you're not excited."

"I already packed the stuff I think we need, but I gotta grab something else real quick. You wearing your good heinie-kicking boots?" He glanced down. She was. "Come on, it'll be fun."

She threw her bag into the backseat of the car with more force than necessary, glaring at him.

He pretended to not notice, jingling the car keys playfully in his hand.


	5. truck stop blues

5\. truck stop blues - 'splosions

. . .

The pain in Grant's ankle increased, caused by swelling around the abused joint and overextended tendons. He ignored it, just as he'd ignored every other minor ding from the deliberate car crash. He kept shuffling, maintaining the best speed he could. The truck stop was only another mile or so ahead, its flickering yellow lights on the horizon. He kept pace with the main road, using brush and scrub to mask his path a little. If someone, anyone would drive down the highway, he'd push closer and flag them down but no one came. Once he thought he saw car headlights winking in the distance, but they turned away long before he got close. So he kept moving, hurrying, glancing intermittently over his shoulder to watch for the looming shape of his captor.

Nothing. A lone nightbird called its wild _scree _once and then drifted away again. He allowed himself a glimmer of hope as the lights grew steadily closer.

And then out of the late evening's silence, a darker patch of night dropped unstoppably onto his back with a displeased hiss.

. . .

Loki calculated within his genuine anger at the human, matched it with the need to drag him just a little further into fearing the demigod. He toppled them both down to the ground, very close to the road and smashing Ward's face into the sandy grime. A fragment of asphalt cut high along the man's face and he relaxed his pressure just slightly enough to keep from hitting bone. The human struggled, gasping at him, trying to pull away on pure instinct and gaining just enough to find himself flipped over.

Now Loki held the predator's seat, all but kneeled on the man's chest, leering madly down into the wide-eyed face. "My goodness," he sneered. "You stupid thing. You still think you can be the hero in all of this. Now_ that's_ comedy."

"HYDRA will never take you," Ward gasped in response. "You're dangerous, too much risk."

"So you'll think to sell me to your lost friends instead?" The hanging jackal's grin. "Oh, they've learned to not trust such gifts. No easy prisoners for _them_. I taught them better than that. You doom yourself utterly." He pressed down into Ward's chest with a single knee. He squirmed, one hand getting free to slap futilely at the black-clad leg.

"I notified one of the last stations we passed. Left a note. You didn't see. They're coming. For both of us. Coming." Ward choked the words out as the pressure on his chest increased, the bluff changing nothing in Loki's face. "You're insane," he rasped, his face reddening.

The pressure abruptly lessened as Loki looked up at the approaching headlights. He squinted at them, considering quickly. Not Coulson. The vehicle was large and boxy, some truck best meant for rural use. Just a rare local, and no time to get further from the road. He pulled away instead, grabbed Ward around the throat when he tried to flee again and yanked him close, almost a hug.

The vehicle's lights caught them both, slowing down as it pulled alongside. The dingy window wheeled down and a face peered quizzically out at them. "You boys alright here?"

Loki grinned, wide and affable, a thumb jutting hard and deep into Ward's throat to cut off his voice. His own came out in a slow, easy drawl. "My friend here's had far too much to drink tonight. Thank you, sir."

The man in the truck looked him over. The strangling Grant realized the demigod's ruined black suit had turned into faded red flannel and patchy denim pants at some point and managed a startled _hck! _sound.

"Oh _Looord," _Loki moaned, forcing the man to bend like an envelope. "He's gonna toss it any second now." He glanced up at the concerned trucker. "He wasn't happy with how the Grizzlies played tonight, sir. Took it out on a couple sixers and a fifth of something I ain't managed to catch. Tryin' to convince me to hit that stop up there for more." He shook his head, clearly put upon by his drunken buddy.

"I hear that, boy." Then the next challenge came. "You need help getting him somewhere?"

The affable grin returned, now a little sheepish and long-suffering. "Naw, sir. I got this. My car's up just a bit more and this ain't the first time." He put a dolorous weight on the words.

"Well." The trucker smacked his lips. "I ain't gonna sit in judgment, ain't my place. But if he wakes up in the morning with a taste for God's help, I can vouch for the AA place just up in Ronan."

Loki kept the corner of his eye from twitching at the name. "Maybe this'll be the time. Thank you very much."

"You boys take care now."

Grant writhed, making another soft choking noise. Loki waved a cheery good-night at the trucker as he drove on again, then took his thumb out of the human's throat. "You see," he said conversationally. "No one is going to help you." He let the man drop to the ground, too much in need of air to try and escape.

"You have no one to save you but me," he added offhandedly, watching Ward shudder. In the red and temporarily defeated face, he recalled a taste of his old arrogance. It was still heady and sweet. He pushed it away and tried to remember the human's value.

. . .

May hadn't talked during the entire three hour trip. Not in itself unusual, but the way she crossed her arms spoke plenty instead. Coulson, for his part, tried to ignore her clear opinion and hummed along to the various classic rock stations he picked up while chasing down the trail of Loki's crashed car.

He broke the silence when they were only a couple of minutes from where Triplett and Skye were parked, waiting for orders. "We had time to stop for something. I'm snacky."

"I'm not eating late night diner crap, Phil." Her voice was curt. "Let's just do this."

"And then go back and get SHIELD cafeteria food." He sighed. "When I can spare the budget, I'm totally redoing that section." He lifted an eyebrow, thinking aloud. "Maybe hire a sushi guy for Fridays. I miss nigiri."

He didn't look, but he was fairly certain she rolled her eyes.

"I think we could probably vet a sushi guy to make sure he's not HYDRA."

"Enough about sushi. Their lights are ahead." She flicked her fingers towards the black van pulled off the side of the road, about a half mile up.

. . .

"We had to pull off and turn around just after that truck stop, sir. He mighta seen our headlights, but I doubt the target made much of that." Triplett shrugged, looking over the ordinance Coulson pulled out of Lola's trunk. Most of it was brought and prepped only for showiness, although Mr. Friendly, the Destroyer-based weapon, made its proper appearance cradled in its tough black case. "Got passed by a truck once."

"They encounter the target?"

"Think so. Seems like they disengaged without incident."

"'Kay. So, the gig is actually a really simple one. We're going to make this look like a total surprise, pretend like we're going to blow the utter crap out of Loki, and May's got priority dropping the target when he books it."

"Loki expecting our play?"

"Well, he's expecting something, yeah. Not what."

Skye crossed her arms, lifting one eyebrow. "He agreed to that?"

"What can I say? The guy digs on improv." Coulson shoved his hands in his suit pockets and grinned a little. "We're going to roll in a little hot, make it look really good. He's already a little banged up, so I'm fairly sure he'll forgive us."

May shot him a sideways look.

"It'll be fine. Triplett, Skye, this is what I want you two doing..."

. . .

Without a car to speed him along, Loki frog-marched the human across the landscape of western Montana, now well away from the road. Were it daylight, Flathead Lake might be gleaming on the distant horizon, but for now there was only the darkness, the slowly fading stars, and the hillier terrain they approached. He remembered Coulson's vague hint, that the re-acquiring of his prisoner would happen by morning. Morning, he noted dourly to himself as he guided Ward by the wrists bound behind his back, was coming right quick.

When the explosion happened, he sure as hell was genuinely surprised.

. . .

Feeling irritatedly like he'd just done this exact sort of thing recently, he shoved Ward down into the softer forest loam that marked the start of the hills, instinctively protecting the human with his own more durable form. Somewhere inside the dense forest and rising terrain was the hidden airbase, but first he had to deal with the sharp ringing in his ears. He snarled into Ward's ear, pitching his voice loud to be sure he was heard over the continuing rumble of the attack. "Don't move!"

Another explosion went off to their left. He felt the heat rush over his face, gritting his teeth at it. Under him, Grant was laughing. Loki considered that as something shrieked through the sky overhead. Had the human convinced himself he'd actually done anything worthwhile, or was he just enjoying the mess they seemed to now be in?

Something crackled through the trees ahead.

"They're not pulling their shots," snorted Ward, his voice muzzled by both dirt and the jangling in Loki's ears. He tightened his grasp, realizing his shirt sleeve was scorched and cracking from the heat of the initial explosion.

_Yes, they are, you daffy little idiot. They know exactly how much of an attack I can take, and how far they can go without melting you by accident. _His thoughts were briefly interrupted by more crackling, the sound of machine-gun fire on a high ridge. The earth around them speckled dirt into the air and he felt a single stray pine needle drift by his cheek. _And they're going right for that upper edge of tolerance, aren't they?_

The shrieking noise in the sky came again and he realized what it was. A targeted drone – oh, that was cute. He planned possible outcomes quickly, hoisted Ward back onto his feet and gave him a good shove as he turned away. "Drone!" he snapped over his shoulder. "Get ahead, into cover."

Ward staggered, startled. Loki whipped his head around and seethed directly into Ward's face. _"Do NOT run far. _I will come for you. Just as soon as I... handle this." He gave Ward one last and wild look of insane delight.

Ward glanced up at the sky and hoofed it.

As Loki assumed, his forward motion suggested there was no way he was going to stop running.

Then the drone crashed near him in a spark of white light.

He grimaced, curling down into a tight ball to protect himself from the otherwise generally harmless assault of fire and noise. His skull thumped from the pressure of its impact.

They really had put on a hell of a show. In reflection, feeling the back of his tattered suit jacked peel from the force of the explosion, he might have asked for a smidge more warning.

And some aspirin.

He wasn't certain the human stuff would help the headache he was acquiring rapidly – that simple ailment that tended to linger longer than others; bones could knit, bruises faded, but a good thumper could hang around a taste too long – but he could get behind the concept of it.

. . .

Skye watched the ordinance drone disappear from her tablet display, feeling a little guilty for how close she'd gotten to dropping it right onto the Asgardian. Down a few meters, Triplett was checking the load he had left in the machine gun. And somewhere further down, Agent May was keeping pace with the jerkwad.

She swiped over to the secondary drone control and hit RECORD. She crawled down carefully to get next to Triplett, sharing with him the display of the silent observer. Time for the best part of the show.

. . .

Ward made it to the cover Loki indicated and then some. He took a hot second to wriggle his wrists in front of him so that he could gnaw at the fabric straps, glancing back and watching the assault on the demigod continue to light up the fading night sky. He spared no sympathy and no further interest. He was busy choosing his next move. Continue ahead to the airbase, or stick to cover before crawling out and looking for civilian help?

He managed to tatter the strips of ruined suit knotted tight around his wrists just a little, right before getting his legs kicked out from under him. He saw the leather boot for just a quick glimpse before he met the ground for the third time in as many hours.

"Oh, hey, May," he managed. "How're you?"

She popped him once in the skull with a tight fist, knocking him out.

_"Awww," _came the pouting voice from the comm in her jacket pocket. She fished it out.

"Efficency, not brutality."

_"It was brutal last time?"_

"This is just business." She snapped off the comm with a curt gesture and glanced up the hillside at the pair, ignoring any further temptation.

. . .

Ward came to, splayed on the hood of Lola. A shadow passed over him, and he turned his aching neck around to see Agent – no, Director Coulson looming over him. That stupid alien technology gun was balanced easily on his back from a thick strap. By the smirk on Coulson's face, he got an idea of what had happened.

They'd gotten Loki again. Either found a way to neutralize him outright, or were dropping him into the best restraints they'd engineered since New York. He knew there'd been more than a few such projects in development since then.

Now they had him, too. It was over. At least for now.

He put on his best plaintive face and opened his mouth to say something contrite.

A needle lanced his arm and he was out again. May looked across the prone form at Coulson. "He won't budge until after we get him in the hole, guaranteed."

"Trunk him." Coulson spared Ward only one more glance before turning away to look at the taller figure. Loki was idling near an abandoned shed they'd found near the blow-out, one hand patting down the fresh suit he'd changed into, well out of Ward's possible view. Behind him, he heard the heavy thumping of a trunk slamming. "He bought it."

"For all the fireworks, I should dearly hope so." Loki sauntered over, tossing him the bottle of aspirin that had previously been in Lola's glove compartment. "You've got this location verified?"

Coulson caught it deftly, rattled the pills around inside the plastic. "I got a satellite to check the area while we were driving out. It's definitely what we're looking for."

The demigod spread his hands. "That's it, then. Suppose the rest of your game is still in play."

"You mind walking it?"

Loki shrugged. The morning air was decently pleasant, considering the planet. "Sells the story better." He smiled. "You should forever sell the best story you've got."

"That's a little creepy when I consider the context." He watched Loki shrug again by way of response, the usual waver of doubt about the alien's intentions passing through him like an ice cube. "Still got the tracker I gave you?"

"You managed to not short it out, yes." He tapped two pale fingers on his jacket. Nearby, Skye looked up from where she was pacing and nodded, verifying that she was reading its position. "Anything else?"

"Nope. Everything else should be on plan from here." Coulson paused. "Thanks."

Loki examined the man's face critically, then allowed a single brief nod. "Onward then."

He gave a little bob of his head in return. "See you soon."

Another slow, critical look, and then the demigod began to walk off.

Coulson turned and noticed Skye was now sitting on Lola's closed trunk. "Off the car."

"Can I fart on him first?"

"_Skye_."


	6. freeze frame bonus

6\. freeze frame bonus – nostalgia sucks

. . .

Ian Quinn fluttered the photograph between two fingers, making a little snapping noise through the air with it as he walked. The thing had cost him almost as much as an Ansel Adams print might go for at Sotheby's, a 2x4 black and white little number that he dearly hoped was going take Raina out of her funk. Nothing else had so far. Just kept herself wrapped up in discreet phone calls and private meetings. He didn't know with whom.

_You don't want to know. _Her first, last, and final word on the topic. After the supernatural hellhole their New York plan had turned into, Ian was fine with leaving it at that. Let him do the 'grunt' work of glad-handing business deals and keeping them – and Matsu'o's loyalists – under the radar as much as he could muster. No problem. He could do that. So long as he had an open credit account, he could handle it. It was almost like old times. Almost.

He missed his house. It had been a _nice_ house.

But she kept drifting away, that little tightness at the edge of her eyes amounting to what may as well be a brick wall. Not status quo. Ian didn't like that part. Friction accounted for, he liked having another brain around to bounce off of. So he paid thousands for this little gift between friends, rendering one of those hard-fought credit cards temporarily unuseable. The very best gift he could offer. He hoped it was worth it.

He beamed at the black-suited doorguard and slid by him with a jaunty salute and an automatic scan of the security card dangling at his belt.

. . .

Quinn watched Raina's back, noting her now-usual tension in the rigid shoulders. He pushed away his irritation with her and pressed on. "You're not listening to me, honey."

"I heard you, Ian. Some little mess at Leavenworth. I read the memo yesterday." She reached up to the screen and flicked its current image aside. He caught a glimpse of some mess of squiggles and lines and ignored it. "And now you're trying to tell me about some redneck light show in Montana."

"Which is how I can tell you're not listening. The Montana thing happened less than 72 hours after the prison break of an ex-operative who's been kept under wraps literally _under _the joint. I dug around, that's where they sometimes used to drop SHIELD guys that had been misbehaving."

"I don't care about Grant Ward." She glanced at him over her shoulder, guessing correctly where he was going with that. It brought her attention to him a bit more. At least that was something. "He was ultimately barely any use to Garrett, he's even less to me now. I no longer want anything to do with HYDRA." She almost spat the name.

"Totally understand and agree with that, babe. If that's all it was, I wouldn't be bothering you with this. But I was thinking about the Leavenworth thing, and I was like, '_Well.'" _He spread his hands, mimicking his own voice. "_'That's interesting. How do you break a man out of a secure facility like that? Do you rent a bulldozer? Maybe dig up Blonsky?' _So I checked around." He leaned towards her, across her desk, fluttering the picture to catch her attention. "And I found something you _will _care about."

Her gaze darted first to his eyes and then to the expensive little snapshot, where her own eyes went wide. It was a blurry, cruddy screenshot from a security camera set in the ceiling of a narrow hall, and coming in from the high right was a tall, lean figure. All black and grey and that narrow, bone-white face. "Oh, _Ian,_" she breathed, with that little shake of her head.

He grinned, delighted. There she was, turning towards him. Completely there, for the first time in months. "He's back in town, honey. And I know exactly where he's going. If you think with me for just a second, so do you."

"Montana!" She clapped her hands together once, now excited. "How? Why?"

Ian dropped into the seat in front of her, still grinning. "I sold parts and some other crap to a bunch of what I was pretty sure were actually HYDRA avionics guys back in the days after everyone's first round of excitement in the Big Apple. Special stuff, if you get my meaning."

"_His _things."

"Well, those creepy skull faced bug guys, but same diff, right? They were really interested in that whole shebang. Wanted everything I still had left." He shrugged, hands affably high in the air. "So after about six different shell companies and a couple checks they tried to bounce on me, it all apparently went to a secret aviation facility deep in Nowheresville, Montana. And get this, it just so happens that _someone _went out of their way to blow up an abandoned SHIELD joint last week with such flair that they dumped it off the local news and roundfiled the rest of the reports almost instantly." He chuckled. "You'd think the US military would get better about executing a cover up. Everything comes up aliens these days. Alex Jones is probably still jittering about it nonstop."

"It got _his_ attention." She frowned, the excitement dampening slightly as she thought. "And Coulson's, no doubt." Her gaze flickered away, back to whatever it was on the screen.

"They might be working together. Again."

"Hmm." She focused on him again, the bright smile returning. "I have to think about this. Think... how we'll use this." She reached out and touched him gently on the face. "Thank you very much, Ian. I needed a little good news."

"I'm sure it'll be fun."

"Oh, certainly." She beamed. "Fun for all!"

. . .

Dead growth - all dried fungus, snapping needles, and rust orange leaves, musty smelling and old - crunched under Loki's fine black shoes as he picked through the last fragments of a broken trail. An early-waking owl hooted once not far from him, annoyed by the presence of this tall, stalking intruder. He smirked to himself at the sound, forever grateful to not hear much from ravens and other nosy _corvidae_. Let the owls watch; them he didn't mind. It was their land and he was far from home. Another blessing to be counted in that, as he reckoned. There were always his ghosts walking with him even as he passed quietly and willingly on some mortal's business, and he gave them no time. His mind was on other things, meant for himself alone.

But he did not miss the quick break in the foliage, and paused his steady travelling when the smells of oil and metal greeted his nose. The low thrum of electricty had met his senses several minutes earlier, and those he did not pause for. He stayed in the woodline for a little while, his gaze picking out the probable locations of hidden cameras or traps, then stepped into the open without fear of new watchers.

The airstrip looked long abandoned. Before him stretched a thin runway that was coated in old rubbish and stains, bordered on one side by a sloping, carved hillside meant to cut and control the wind across the strip. A tower challenged the trees for dominance, a filthy cracked window looking down on the strip. The doors of a couple bunkers clattered in the breeze, echoing for any to see that they were empty and forgotten.

The smile widened a bit, then vanished under the bland poker face. A fine illusion, kept with care. His sharp eyes saw also how carefully the runway was tended underneath the mess – no cracks criss-crossing the tarmac, no raised stones to fumble a craft's momentum. He saw also how little the manmade hillside allowed its roots and stones to slide to the ground. The tower was a meaningless prop. Through Coulson he knew even humans could observe and control aircraft from anywhere now, even far underground.

He glanced again at the hillside and ambled over to it with deliberate arrogance. Looking even closer, he could see the long seams carved into the earth that demarked the huge, hidden door and centered himself before it.

Only silence greeted him. Cagey ones lived inside this little hidden cage. How charming. Now he allowed his smile to return with a glance at the sky. He clasped his hands together in a wry greeting. "I am Loki of Asgard. Once I marched upon your world with glorious purpose. Today, I am here to hope like fire that you at least named one of your stolen little craft that very name – _Glorious Purpose. _I might find _that_ amusing."

Feedback noise crackled along the airstrip. He arched a single eyebrow at the cacophony, waited for their response.

_"Are you here to threaten us, sir?" _The voice was neutral, the cadence cautious.

"Where's the fun in that?" He shoved his hands in his suit pockets, allowing a quick and irreverent shrug. "You know a whisper of my capabilites, and I am bemused by yours. We have a common enemy, and, let me underline, you assault that enemy with things that were once mine. You have marked your path of vengeance, put your voice out there for all to hear, if they can but listen. Should I not come and question it myself?"

Silence.

"You sent a clear message to _them._" He spat the word. "And _I_ came instead. Do not enter a fray unless you're certain of the field."

_"We were certain." _This voice was firmer. He narrowed his eyes, considering that.

The vast door in the hillside began to pull open.

. . .

Triplett hunkered in his nest, almost half a mile from the electronically marked boundaries of the hidden airstrip. A readout on his lap kept him updated of any detection risks, scrolling more quickly now as the door of the real facility opened in the distance. He didn't bother to look down at it, keeping his focus instead through the long-range binoculars in his muddy, camoflauged hand. He felt like Arnold in the first _Predator _film, invisible to the SHIELD-quality high tech heat and motion trackers that ringed the forest, and in roughly the same amount of danger if he got picked up after all.

He'd lose audio as soon as Loki went inside, but the tracker on the demigod would feed him at least some information on the interior layout for a while yet. Meanwhile, he squinted through the binoculars and picked out as many first-hand details as he could on Loki's welcoming team.

Five people in a line, framed inside the door. The man in the center, average height and thick-chested with dark brown hair shot liberally through with white, stepped forward without any fear on his lined, Italian face. Joe Manfredi himself. _"Welcome, Loki of Asgard," _said the man, his posture straight and his arms crossed behind him. _"We are Blackwing."_

The other four nodded their heads once, in unison. "Kinda creepy bunch," muttered Triplett, low and careful under his breath.

. . .

Loki inclined his head politely. "Is that Lord Blackwing I for yourself, Lord Blackwing II, Lady Blackwing, Lord Blackwing III, and Madame Blackwing there on the end, or shall I just assume Blackwing, singular on all the formal stationary?"

The stocky man cracked a grin. "Aliens got a sense of humor since the last time I read a briefing."

"It's my trademark," said Loki, bowing modestly and noting that the man hadn't bothered to address the question actually contained inside his jest. These people smelled odd to his senses. Familiar, but muddled enough that it didn't quite come together instantly. A warning jangle went off in his instincts, though. This was... stranger than Coulson's briefing implied.

A huff of air puffed through the man's nostrils and he took another step forward with a hand outstretched. "I'm Joe Manfredi."

Loki took it, noted the man shook in greeting without any attempt to aggrandize his own strength. "A pleasure," he drawled. "You are unafraid? I have a _slight _reputation of which you might be aware."

"We think you'll particularly like what we're up to, sir." Manfredi stepped back again to wave inside, welcoming him. "Take a look."

The other four pilots went back in, occasionally moving in an eerie, perfect unison with their leader. _We. _The hint of something recognizable slammed against him again, and this time it pulled together with forced and bitter nostalgia.

_They smell like Chitauri. _A ripple of gooseflesh went down Loki's back, showing not at all on his face. He smiled pleasantly instead, folded his own hands behind his back, then curled one into a fist. He didn't glance over his shoulder or make any other reaction for the benefit of the physical ghost he knew had also followed him through the forest. Only the fist spoke for him. It was the best he could do for now.

. . .

Triplett noted the gesture with a frown, watching the group disappear inside the underground facility as the door shut again. It meant Loki already sensed extra trouble from these guys. He jotted down everything he'd seen and heard, and sent it on to Skye, back at the Playground.

If it _was _trouble, Loki was going to be on his own with it for a while.


	7. a changed man

7\. a changed man – a changeling people

. . .

"I want you to know, right now, that I absolutely hate your guts. I hate everything about you, including the fact that you're just useful enough to me that I'm _allowing _you to stink up my new basement. It had a fresh paint job, you know. I hate you so much for what you did to _my team_ that I can barely stand to look at you. Much less actually have this conversation. So I'm not. I'm just... doing this instead. See if snarling at you makes me feel any better."

Coulson white-knuckled his fists inside the pockets of his suit jacket, staring at the prone figure that lay on the spartan bed inside the sealed cell in almost perfect darkness. All that separated them was a single thin barricade, but it was an impenetrable one. For all the prisoner knew, he was alone.

It didn't stop him from keeping his face turned towards what was for him implacably blank wall, awake and devoid of anything readable or approachable. It meant that Coulson still felt like he was meeting Ward's eyes, and he knew from looking into them that the prisoner was going to be trouble in the weeks to come. He'd been a statue since waking up in the cell. Just totally shut down, with no idea what was coiling around inside his skull. It gave Coulson the crawlies, mixed in well with the full load of barely suppressed anger and resentment.

"Coming to believe that whole thing about catharsis is a load of crap." He glanced down at the control pad and tapped once at it, replacing his own view with a sheer grey screen. He stared at that for a while instead, feeling vaguely listless and compiling a mental list of things to observe in the prisoner. He was suddenly struck with bitter nostalgia for when it was just crazy alien demigods in cells instead. The world had gotten very weird, well before he found out his brains had been through a magic bullet blender. God, he wanted to take a walk somewhere quiet that didn't smell like band-aids and cardboard boxes. Maybe they should install a garden.

_"Phil?" _The voice chimed from the phone in his pocket, currently set to act like an intercom. He grimaced and fished it out before Skye could repeat herself, much less decide to track him down. He didn't want her coming down to the vault until she absolutely had to.

"Yeah?"

_"Triplett's already called in."_

He dragged the observer's chair over to the corner and stepped out of the vault room, sealing it behind him. "You sound tense."

_"He sounded tense. Loki dropped a warning signal before he even walked through their front door."_

Oh. Great. "Any idea why?"

_"Triplett said the scene looked weird."_

A mild headache began to form between his eyes. "Define weird – two heads weird, flippers weird, Sesame Street on Ice weird, or was that their friend there in the woodchipper kinda weird?"

_"Come on up and I'll show you what he sent me."_

He killed the intercom. "I should be out there," he muttered, lifting his head to look for a long time at the door to Ward's prison, feeling like he was still on the other side of it.

. . .

Skye kept her arms crossed over her loud flannel shirt, shrugging as the information Triplett sent looped across dual monitors. "It had to be something Loki saw or sensed right away. Something that set him off when he first started talking to these guys." She paused, pulled in the footage to make a fuzzy zoom on the five pilots greeting the lanky figure. She looped a two second piece of the footage, watching the four pilots bob their heads in unison behind Manfredi like Daft Punk at a live show. She paused it when Coulson cleared his throat. "That part is kinda weird, yeah."

"It's gotta be something obvious, then. Why waste sending a warning if there's no way for us to use it? He's kinda on our side here, but let's face it. He's not exactly wired to overestimate our intelligence. He'd roll with beginning-learner style messages. Golden Books."

"Something that'd be obvious to us."

He furrowed his brow, considering. He reached out and tapped the screen, focusing one each blurry figure in turn. "But obvious to him, first." He let the footage continue, watched them walk back into the underground facility with that same, almost eerie coordination. Something tickled at his mind and he let it ride, eyes widening slightly as it clicked.

Skye stepped back to give him room as Coulson started to fumble with the secondary screen, pulling up jumbled footage from the New York assault. "It _is _obvious. We know these guys are riding planes with reused Chitauri tech under the hood, and Ward indicated these were pilots made to be even better than anyone that ever got trained through TOPGUN. We figured they were enhanciles pretty much immediately, right?"

She gestured at both screens, not quite seeing where he was going. "Yeah, but I thought that was gonna mean, you know, chips implanted upstairs to help them handle crap at super high speeds."

He shook his head rapidly. "Look at 'em pouring through that portal over Stark Tower."

"My favorite part is when they all keel over when the thing shuts on 'em."

"Exactly. They were all wired up together – organic hive minds and exotic-to-us alien tech, inseparably blended together. How do we podge all that together for our purposes, since we've established we're kinda crappy about ethics when it comes to human experimentation? We make a similar interface. Man-machine."

"Great Kraftwerk album."

He ignored that. "They're flying Chitauri tech that easily because they became at least a little Chitauri themselves, probably through DNA scrambling or getting their brains rewired." He paused, then continued on, uncomfortable with how that paralleled his earlier thoughts. "Or something like that. Loki would of _course _notice."

"Oh, great. Because we all needed more alien-human experimentation around." Skye bit her lip. "So that wigged him out enough to try and make sure we didn't miss it?"

He blanked both the screens and went quiet for a minute. "The army that hit New York was rigged up to answer to his commands, but I don't think that's the whole story. Something about how he really avoids the topic. Also, we don't know how much of that alien mindset comes with whatever Blackwing's been juiced up with. These pilots just might take him in like either a returning king that could use a new army... or an exiled one to be torn apart and used in the name of HYDRA." He frowned, then muttered for his own benefit, "Gonna owe him another couple of drinks over this, assuming he doesn't get tempted into world-domination mode again. I'm gonna try to not think about that yet."

Skye rubbed a hand over her forehead. "I'll get Koenig and we'll see if we can run down what sort of junk these guys might have been sent to play with. Maybe we'll get an idea of what their potential capability is."

"Keep monitoring all communication in that area, too. I want to know what HYDRA says if these guys ship out a newsletter about the family reunion or something. Preferably shut it down before it goes out, if you could."

"Yeah. That reminds me." She pulled a stylus from her tablet and waggled it at him. "These guys are the definition of radio silence. They don't talk to _anybody. _I checked local ham logs and some other stuff? Hasn't been an outgoing _or _incoming message in years."

He arched an eyebrow. "Not even after Rogers and Romanoff made HYDRA flash their asses for the evening news?"

"Nnnnnope." She shrugged. "Could just be using freqs I haven't found yet."

"But you don't think so."

"Gut says no. Also says that I'm feeling snacky. So I'll go do that. The things. And get some chips." She paused on her way out. "You okay, by the way?"

"Fine, why?"

"You just seem kinda stir crazy lately." She grinned at him. "Glad you got a couple hours out with Lola."

"Yeah. Me, too." She was still looking at him, with that goofy grin and way too much nosiness in the eyes. "I'm good," he fibbed, trying to make it true. "Thanks."

. . .

The underground hangar sloped just sharply enough that each sleek craft had a firmly-grounded set of wheel chocks to keep them parked in place. The rest of the broad space was mostly spartan clean, although Loki felt his gaze drawn to a peeling mess on the far wall. Only a few flecks of red tape and paint remained, but pattern recognition put it back together quickly. There had once been a vast mural of HYDRA's idiotically dramatic symbol on display. They weren't much on subtle design choices, these would-be lords of the land. He looked away again, considering the implications of that with calm, distanced amusement. From what he'd gathered, destroying such a thing was an act of open defiance as much as it was a victory for good taste.

The 'stink' of Chitauri was worse with the door closed. The shells of the planes seemed normal enough, though visible hydraulics and wiring twisted through a few visible gaps like tendons. A closer glance revealed the plating itself was a slight bit thicker than what humans normally used. Now that was interesting; how to balance for the extra weight?

"Fewer things under the hood, each pilot stays within certain weight limitations. We streamlined a bunch of redundant systems. Saved several hundred pounds on that alone. They're far, far lighter than they look. Almost too light. You need a little heft to counterbalance on a sharp twist."

Loki's jaw tried to tense visibly and he denied it such release. The question should not have been on his face for this man – reforged but still surely mostly human – to read. He controlled himself far better than that even in his worst hours. "Fascinating," he murmured, turning his head slightly to regard the stocky human. Manfredi was looking back at him with benign interest, hands steepled together as if he had much to consider.

That _Other _had once looked at him in such ways, bitter recognition. A dark and terrible urge whispered quick advice – _end this, end them all, walk away – _and he ignored that, too. Erasing the facility his way would solve Coulson's immediate problem, yes. But it would also damage the fragile peace between them he himself decided he needed, and many other questions would be left to ash's answers alone. Not optimal.

He smiled instead, light and wide, noting that the other pilots had withdrawn deeper within the facility ahead of them. No doubt to scatter. He permitted himself only the softest taste of acid unease at that bit of foresight.

There was one other grim consideration before him. If they could now think in a fraction of the way the Chitauri could... he might be at some risk after all. Not so easy to eradicate them as that dark inner voice suggested.

Manfredi smiled back. "Let's go to my office. There's so much more we can talk about."

Possible implications weighted the words heavily in Loki's ears. He tilted his head with a short, accompanying bow. "The future's only e'er a word away."

That bit of poetic whimsy got him a garrulous laugh. No, he did not like these changed humans at all.


	8. be sure your sins will find you out

8\. be sure your sins will find you out

. . .

Manfredi guided Loki through the narrow, warren-like halls of the underground facility. Most of the space cut into the hard Montana earth was necessarily set aside for the unconventional flight deck and surrounding engineering bays. The rest of the place maximized what little was left over, feeling sometimes more like a submarine than an avionics live lab. They passed no living space, no casual lounges, just small cubicles and other necessary holes marked for specific duties.

"You must live yet below, then," Loki mused aloud, making maps and trails in his mind. The massive door was seemingly controlled from some other location and he wanted to know from where. Possibly this creature's office.

"We do." The answer was curt, softened immediately by a wry grin creasing Manfredi's face. "Sorry, sir. We're a little private."

"In such tight quarters, what privacy can be carved free is necessarily hard guarded." He shrugged to show he was unruffled, filed the trivia away with the rest of his observations.

"Especially when you know what carving out that privacy really cost. Ah, here we are." He waved around a corner to the first door Loki had seen thus far that was meant for some scrap of luxury and not more spartan blandness. Dark, well-oiled chestnut. It left a fresher smell in the circulating air, and it opened into a room that was outright ostentatious compared to the rest of the facility.

"The pleasures of leadership," Loki murmured. Every hive kept its hierarchy.

"Take 'em where you find 'em." The folksy American drawl started to sound rubbery and strange in the man's mouth.

By Wall Street's standards, it would be meagre luxury indeed. But the desk was wide and well-made; dark wood to match the door and dotted neatly with files, an inter-office phone, and a sealed laptop. A few frames on the wall – pointless art reproductions, a scrawled and faded notice of some past deed Loki found meaningless, and a low bureau that filled the back space of the office. On that he noted a curio, a tall silver half-dome with a matte finish. Some few buttons and gauges dotted the base ring of the artifact. Perhaps a speaker torn from a plane, or a cooler for chilled drinks. The shape of it was aesthetically pleasing enough.

His eye must have lingered a second too long. "My pride's under there," explained Manfredi, his voice low and human again.

"Mhm." He looked away, noting the tone, not hearing any useful meaning in the words. His ears picked out the sounds of Manfredi moving around behind and then beside him, settling his stocky form into the seat behind his desk. When he glanced back, Manfredi was watching him with that eerily incisive expression again. He resisted the urge to fling the man's trinkets directly into those intrusive eyes. That dark inner voice was still displeased and liked to ask dim questions about why he ever agreed to this trivial task.

_Because I offered my hand, of my own free will, in memory of passing strange kindnesses. Still yourself._

"What have you seen so far?"

Loki arched a single eyebrow. "A handful of pilots, toying with things that were meant to yet be beyond your species' ken." The man kept watching him. It nettled. He allowed himself that wide, charming smile that held unpleasantness behind the white teeth. Let the man observe _that _with those burrowing eyes. "You claim you knew I might come, and this seems to not make you afraid."

"It was a possibility; considered, prepared for, not a certainty. Figured it was likelier we'd just tick off whatever remains of SHIELD, and that was fine, too. More than fine, really. That you came after all... We'd hoped you might be pleased. It would make our goal, should you heed the request... easier."

He snorted. "Ask and be done. I _see_, since you question, that you might have little in holding that might tempt me. Your sponsors seem denied purchase here. Or do I misjudge?"

"Right. The old mural." Manfredi tapped his fingers together, his attention flickering away to seem to muse on something else. "That was unfortunate."

"You speak in past tense."

"Everything is the past, sir." The human cocked his head. "So you don't know."

"What _would_ I know? Please, don't overestimate my fascination for this species' sad gyrations and short-breathed plunges up the evolutionary ladder." He snorted once and dropped into a chair, not needing any focus on his performance. No, the old arrogance came easily for this irritating figure. And for that sublimated, hateful hint of Chitauri rippling under the man's tanned flesh. Gods. "I bore easily."

Manfredi shook his head. "Then humor us for just a couple moments, and we promise we won't be boring."

Loki flapped a hand of suffering encouragement. _Get on with it, then._

"I never intended us to be HYDRA. I never wanted that. It was desperation." The human leaned forward, crossing the gulf of the desk to make his quiet words reach Loki. He was unmoved, but noted the way the man changed when he spoke for the collective and when he spoke for himself. "We were always SHIELD. They won't believe that now, whoever's left in charge now. Rogers, I suppose. It's the truth. A man personally cleared me for the agency, a man I once thought great and powerful; one of the men that might save the world, even from itself if he had to. He gave me a second chance, looked past the poisoned roots I was born to."

A chill threatened to touch Loki's spine at the familiar motif. Instead, he blinked once. Painfully slow.

Manfredi shook his head. "I owed him so much. I knew exactly what my father was, and so did he. And yet, that chance. You met him once."

. . .

Director Coulson looked at the Toolbox in his hand, checking for the third time that his door was locked. Skye and Koenig hadn't come up with much; any files leading to Montana either diverted towards a handful of legitimate military operations, or faded off into switchbacked piles of shell-company paperwork. It gave him a bad feeling. The Blackwing facility was so far off the official books that even HYDRA's corrosive subtlety seemed not enough to have hid it for so long. It had festered out there in secret, waiting for the day it stirred alive to blow up a sleeping SHIELD facility. Flashy enough to be HYDRA, yes. He'd been certain of it; certain enough to risk throwing a demigod onto them and hope for the best. But the trail just wasn't there.

He set down Nick Fury's last, greatest piece of arsenal for a new director and activated it, his guts telling him he should have probably done this much earlier. He was still too new to his role; someone used to always be around with more information to help tell him when he missed something. Now it was just him. The place where the infamous buck stopped.

Blackwing popped up almost instantly on the search, marked for a Director alone.

Coulson sat down hard in his chair as he read, absently rubbing his hand across his mouth.

. . .

"I've met many humans. Few strike me as so notable," Loki drawled in response.

"Not even Nick Fury?"

Without a flicker of surprise, he permitted a single finger to rise. "Ah. That one. I did catch that name at the time. Your benefactor, I assume."

"My father was the Red Skull's pet through and through. He made _millions _of tainted dollars off of gun running, drugs, experimental things. Horrifying things. The deaths of countless of Italians. Members of our own family. And when he came to America, he was the pride of the country. No one knew who he was. No one knew of the syndicate he built. I just wanted to get away from it. To... fly away. And Fury gave me that chance."

Another slow blink. It should be Coulson listening to this dragged-out story, not him. His own agreeableness to that man was going to lead to death by napping. "You promised a lack of boredom."

"I served under Fury's directorship for _years. _In time, I earned my place and more. I put together the best pilots and he promised us a facility to study and to train in. '_We might have to fight Gods again,'_ he told us after New York. '_We can't take any chances.'"_

"And here you are." A flick of his hand.

The human balled his fists on the desk, the taut corners of his eyes going white before serenity passed over him again. "He shut us down at the time we needed support the most. The... project had just started its next phase. Wouldn't explain why we were done. Just that we were. And that's how he repaid our loyalty to SHIELD. With ashes."

. . .

Nick Fury's final attachment on the Blackwing file:

_FACILITY TERMINATED AHEAD OF 'ASCENSION' PROTOCOL'S SECONDARY PHASE._

_FINAL FINDINGS INDICATE T.A.H.I.T.I. ETHICAL BREACHES TOO EXTREME, REQUIRED RE-ASSESSMENT OF ALL RELATED PROJECTS. ASCENSION PROTOCOL RECOGNIZED AS INHUMANE. RECOMMEND PERMANENT SEAL._

_Note to my successor: there is a line between the darkness of war's necessity and the darkness of the damned soul and we are crossing it. Coulson is enraged by what his program's turned into. Means _you_ were probably enraged, Phil, because if I haven't come back and rewritten this, I dropped this pile of historically flavored shit on you to find. Well, that's the plan, anyway._

_We prepared Blackwing to be more than human to help us, help the Avengers Initiative fight things more than human. But we moved too quick and didn't think about what that was really gonna mean. So many things changed after New York that we changed, too, and didn't notice until too late. I think I stopped this one before it got too bad. Read this crap and learn from my mistakes, old friend. Do better than I did. That's your second chance. Maybe mine, too._

The words hung silently in midair.

_"Phil?" _

"What?" He snapped the word too sharply, too quick on the desk phone's button to respond to soften it. He put a hand up to his face, fingers hot and forehead cool. Because he was alone, it shook. Fury's mistakes. There had been an awful lot of mistakes in Montana.

May, somewhere on the other end, let his outburst hang for a long moment. _"More trouble. We need to get Loki out. Now."_

Coulson looked at the holographic flicker of information one more time before shutting off the Toolbox. Yes, they did.

. . .

"I almost gave up. We almost gave up. We had begun to change... but we needed the time he wasn't going to give us." The pronouns kept shifting, but then something went rigid in Manfredi's face. He glanced to his side, to the silver curio. There was a hard light in his eyes whenever he looked at the odd thing. "Against advice, we accepted a new sponsor. Yes, HYDRA. We knew too deeply they would ultimately be no better. History had long since warned us of that. It was not the right choice, but it was the _necessary _choice. It gave us that time, a little extra life to buy that new life. And now we are here. Ascension can be achieved. We can _become_."

Oh, bile and rot. This again. Loki exhaled, slow and dry air through his nostrils. The dark rustle started in his mind again, but this time it came with a chill bell of warning.

As that thought chimed, the human's dark eyes flickered to his and stayed there. "You must get us to the stars."

He arched both black eyebrows up across his pale brow, unimpressed. "Because you _order _me to?"

Manfredi smiled, and it turned and twisted in his face into something alien and broken and horribly familiar. "Because, Loki, broken Prince of Asgard... we _remember."_

The long-ignored cold thing that had nestled alongside Loki's spine broke free. His lips pressed thin and white, fury and hate freezing together in icy burning behind his teeth at the implications buried in that single word. He would not allow fear. Four changed humans and one more that _dared _to slither at him in that torturer's voice. Oh, but he'd let the hate ride.

Before his anger slipped from his grasp, Manfredi spoke again. His gravelly older man's voice was mild again, almost entirely human. "Strike in anger too quickly, sir, and you might find you've made a grave mistake." A thin little smile met the single twitch in Loki's cheek. "We want the same things. The same things that brought you to our... forefathers once before."

"You presume on such knowledge." He bit off the words.

"We presume on that old deal." Manfredi leaned forward, voice losing that human edge again in favor of buglike sibilancy. "Or have you reneged on _your _end?"

What little color lived in Loki's face drained from it. Before he could corral his response to that, the phone chimed once on Manfredi's desk. He put his hand on it, gaze never leaving Loki's face though the focus in the man's dark eyes seemed to go inward for a second. Only for a second. Enough for him to think rapidly – there was no chance for these remade abominations to connect with their true blooded brethren.

No possibility. That must be true. Even if they did make it to the stars, they'd be shredded instantly for the feeble constructs they were. His hard-fought place away from that death-riddled throne was at no risk.

Not even the mad god's influence over his pets could stretch so far... could it?

There was a single razor's glimmer of doubt, edged with the demonstration before him that these people had gone beyond needing vocal communication. The phone was a method to not intrude. A knock of the door, and then minds whispering together. Just like _they _could, when networked and chained to their battle machines. That told him in low, dour whispers of instinct, that there was now just enough risk here to put everything ascatter. The man's gaze focused on him again, and he didn't bother with a smile. Very well, a few moments of time to test the boundaries of the man's implied threat. Play their rules, then, with caution. Let this chimera of a human take this round. He would take the game.

"We must divert our conversation for a little while. Our apologies."

"Trouble?" he asked, settling the drawn lines of his face into bland serenity.

Manfredi's lips wormed again. "We have another _guest_."


	9. badger badger mushroom

9\. badger badger mushroom – buddy cop show

. . .

Agent Triplett didn't resist when the two freakily coordinated people in pilot jumpsuits handcuffed him to the steel table. It was the tiny interrogation room's dominant feature. Two cameras in two corners stayed fixed on him with little red dots to let him know they were live. The door was 1.5 inch tungsten steel and rebar core. He'd seen them before in other facilities. Hardcore stuff, but not without flaws. Interestingly, the room didn't have a two-way mirror in addition to the live feed. Well, at least he got a chair. He sat uncomfortably in it, holding his wrist up to show off the cuff with open annoyance. He kept his eyebrows bunched together, muttering _hey _every few seconds to get the pilots to talk to him. They never did.

One reached up to tweak the position of a camera and together, moving in unison, they left. He puffed a breath of air out and rolled his eyes, waiting for whatever big dog was going to come in to interrogate him. Another glance at the camera – would they let Loki watch? He was betting on the probability that they might. Otherwise, the tracking hadn't done him a lot of good. This place was a maze. Going to be hard to find their weirdly friendly creeper if he couldn't come to Triplett.

The door scraped open again only a moment later. "Man," he said to the back of a man he instantly identified as the facility's primary hostile target. "You got my stuff? Please don't tell me you just threw away my stuff."

"Why are you trespassing on government property, young man?" Manfredi shut the door and leaned against it. The man's voice was neutral enough to stall a car.

"Is it? You seen this place? It's so freakin' dead, I had no way of knowing anyone was here. Perfect territory, let me tell you." Triplett shook his head, staying annoyed. He put his hands down flat on the table. "You should have better fences and stuff. Like, at least some signs."

"There were signs."

He visibly paused, pretending to consider that. "Yeah, okay, I mighta seen _one." _He lifted his free hand and waved it to his side, gesturing and bobbing to make his point. "Half buried, maybe ten miles back. It could have come from _anywhere_."

Manfredi watched him. Triplett got the eerie sense of something else behind the man's driving eyes. "Dude, though, seriously. My stuff."

"Your stuff." It came out flat. The guy didn't blink. Ever. Triplett refused to be rattled by that, sticking to his persona.

"Man! It just _rained." _He dragged out the word for emphasis; part of a tiny set of simple codes previously arranged. "It's flowering out there like you wouldn't believe." _Get the hint, freaky friend, if you're watching._

"You're a botanist."

"I'm a fun guy." Manfredi looked through him, not getting the joke. Triplett rolled his eyes. "I'm a fungi guy."

"And we think you're a deliberate trespasser. Who sent you? Who gives you your orders?"

He filled his face with slack shock. _"What?"_

"You don't look like you're from around here."

It didn't matter how this guy meant it. Disbelief and anger were easily harnessed for Triplett's role. "You... holy _crap, _dude. You legit think some... what the hell you thinking, _spy _is more likely than a black guy in Montana?" He fell back against his seat, shaking his head. "Go look at my stuff!"

"Mushrooms."

"Man. It's maitake season. Do you have _any _idea what that baby is worth per pound?" He pushed his hands towards Manfredi, palms up. "It's better than gold! You get some of those bad boys in your bucket, walk up to any restaurant in the area, and you just paid a chunk of your rent. Get two buckets? That's bills, too. It's a rough business. Lots of competition. So I find a place nobody is in, you're damn right I'm checking the trees."

Manfredi just watched him.

"Google it!" He exploded with the words. "This area has _insane _conditions for the stuff. Good moisture, some standing water, old growth... You ever eaten maitake? Hen of the woods? You saute that action in a little butter, brown it up, get the little bits crispy. Oh man, the wood notes." He bit his lip and shook his head for emphasis. "Never eat a button mushroom after that again, I promise. Hell, I think they're better than morels, and people go _nuts_ for those."

Manfredi watched him steadily for a long, silent while. Then he turned to leave the room again.

"I swear, man!" Triplett slumped back, testing the cuff again with a tug. It creaked. Yeah. If he had to, he could get out. Even through the imposing door; the hinges weren't top notch. He glanced up at the cameras again, hoping. _Don't make me do this on my own, man. I don't know the scene in here. Just what Coulson ran down for me. And he thinks you won't leave me stuck. _

_I don't know yet what I think. _

For now, he hunkered in on himself to piece together the rest of a full backup plan.

. . .

Manfredi had left Loki – all but _ordered _him to remain – in the observation room. His own arrogant declarations that he had not been followed meant little to the changeling human. The lack of recognition on his face sold his act a touch better. What was likelier of Manfredi's two dominant assumptions – that Blackwing's actions indeed gained all the attention it had sought and brought more than one interloper to its door, or that Loki would permit an alliance with those behind the man locked in the interrogation room?

Whatever these creatures thought they knew of him would not allow for that. A scrap of luck. Not enough to balance out Triplett's little warning. Yes, he'd caught it. Decently subtle without context. Raina was in the scene, too. His nostrils flared, recalling her drive, her acquisitiveness. If she could throw matters into disarray and get him strapped to a slab for her purposes, she would do it without hesitation. A complication he could have done without, on this day of all days. A minor one, to be true – when last he'd seen her face, he wasn't precisely at his best.

The knowledge that today wasn't exactly going as he'd like, either, sat as an unwelcome companion to the acid in his stomach.

He glanced behind him as a displeased Manfredi at last returned to the observation room, all his thoughts newly buried lest this freak try to see them. "Some delay there," he said, his voice light as if they hadn't just been dancing around old sins. He didn't care that the words sounded fake in the facility's gloomy, heavy air.

Silence.

Dark hilarity visited him as he pictured the man hunkered over a laptop, typing 'fungi hunting' into Google with his pudgy fingers. "He speaks one truth about your flora that I know, I'll tell you freely. The things he speaks of _are_ quite tasty."

Manfredi's gaze flickered to his, deeply unamused. "We are unconvinced. It doesn't matter. We can and will use him regardless of his origin."

Loki rolled his eyes, slouched back as if none of this mattered to him. He wished, fleetingly and sharp with dislike, that there was the old truth to that. "He's nothing but a hunter's drudge, youthful and prone to mistakes. But do as you like."

"Who is in charge here... sir?"

The cold fire came roaring back to life. He narrowed his glinting grey-green eyes into a piercing glower and stared down at the man. "Neither of us," he hissed.

That paused Manfredi. He gave a slow nod to acknowledge that the shot hit its mark. "You do recall our place."

_The human phrase best applicable to this moment is 'eat shit.' _He said nothing of this aloud. Monsters, all, and he once thought to be a king among them. Hel and damnation and eternal winters, but he could do without these memories shoved freshly into his face. Still, that chance of threat. It yet stayed his hand... that and the knowledge that Coulson's man ought leave this hole alive. It would please him, no doubt. Humans did not leave their companions behind unless all other choices were lost. This he had seen for himself. He glanced at the monitors again, considering behind his still narrowed eyes.

"We have a few things to do, preparations to make before we find our way from here." Manfredi flicked a hand at the monitor. "We will prepare him. Ensure he will observe. And then, when our fire falls from the sky, we may send him away from here alive. Broken, of course. But he will tell others what he saw here."

"Charming plan, not at all dramatic." The gist was plain; more assaults while they tortured Coulson's agent. Wonderful.

"Would you prefer to take that role for him, exiled prince?" The words were mild and the eyes still didn't blink.

Loki smiled back into them, caustic and fearless. _And what strength behind you thinks you could try? Or are your threats empty, preying on what you think I am? What I have been? _"Let us go talk of other matters, then. Your plans."

Manfredi shook his head. "We will send you to rest and wait. We will resume later."

. . .

Triplett looked up as the door scraped open again with agonizing slowness, eyes widening slightly. "Hey." He glanced at the cameras. "Hey, man, let me ou-"

"The monitors are off. I made certain." Loki kept a hand on the door until he was sure it wouldn't fall closed. The day was marked poor enough; being trapped by his own mistake would be too much to bear. "We've little time. Your warning is duly noted; feel free to expand at next soonest opportunity."

"It gets worse than Raina, dude."

"Oh, please. Don't tell _me._" Loki reached across the desk and passed a hand over the cuff attaching him to the desk. A soft _clink _was almost lost in the humid, heavy air of the room. "It's awful in here. If you had not come, I might have already painted the place in red." He went to the door again, sticking his head out to listen carefully. "I hate these people. You have no idea."

"I think I might. They coming?" Triplett rubbed at his freed wrist.

"Should not be." The grey-green eyes flickered over to him. "They led me to some chamber not unlike this one, intending I should wait and witness whatever fresh hell they're up to. I feel I should mention that was going to include your upcoming torture. Then I found a benefit to the way they think – they were already beginning their communion. The flickering join of their thoughts. They did not realize they led a shade of me, certain of their place and mastery of it. Did you smuggle in any supply with your message? Explosives?"

Triplett shook his head, causing Loki to sigh. "Tell me more when I've got us away from this room. We need further information. I at least know where to start."

"Any chance we just scoot out and fry the place?"

A mirthless smile. "_Now_ you're talking. Unfortunately, the door seems controlled in several stages from within. No easy button next to the gate, I'm afraid. They were abundantly cautious. Simplest method... begins exactly where I planned on going. Their leader's office."

Triplett nodded once as Loki beckoned him out of the room and down the hall. "We'll argue about what plan to take when we get there, then. You're right. We should at least get intel first."

"I'm going to treasure that concession. Now, move quick. This place would give a robot the willies." Loki glanced over his shoulder at Triplett's double-take. "I'm not wrong."

"Hell you just say?"

"I'm not _wrong._" He jerked a thumb to indicate his upcoming route. "Quit dithering."

"The willies."

"Cousin to the heebie-jeebies."

"I'm telling Coulson we had this conversation," said Triplett, moving past him and picking up speed.


	10. things come to a head

10\. walk and talk – things come to a head

. . .

Triplett followed fast in Loki's wake, mapping the place out for himself as they snaked a path through the warrens of the base. Loki maintained that Manfredi would not be in his office at this time, and there were no cameras within that little sanctum. Manfredi and the others, he believed, were likely well-ensconced below. There was an edge to the Asgardian's voice, something off-note for the demigod and easily noticeable. Triplett bought his open dislike at face value and left prying questions for a time when maybe he'd be less tense about them. Meanwhile, as they moved, he followed up on a few previous thoughts.

"No way I was getting anything inside this place but a bucket of 'shrooms. Probably tossed 'em, which is a shame. Anyway, if we can get a message through, I can get backup on the scene if you think we need it. But the plan _was_ just get to you and then get the hell back out. Director figured you'd already have something in mind. You never go anywhere without an exit plan."

"His faith in me is _charming!_ Do me a favor and don't tell him I just implied I would prefer to utterly annihilate the place and play in their blood."

"Message he gave me to carry indicates he'd probably get over it. Something's badly wrong here."

Triplett watched the tall shoulders droop a little as the Asgardian considered the implications of that. He never paused his hurrying march, though, and kept rushing them through the narrow warren. "Tell me. Quick."

"First thing - We intercepted a call from Raina, weren't able to trace a location. It didn't go through. Do these guys not pick up the phone or something?"

"Or something." Loki's voice was low and dour.

"We think she's selling out your position on our side to try and get custody of you somehow, based on previous MO. Matsu'o Tsurayaba landed in Montana 'bout two hours ago. He's on his way, got some dudes with him. Probably ninja. That's not as cool as I used to think." The tall shoulders heaved in a dragging sigh. "And then there's the other thing."

"The pilots here are barely half-human at this point, flickering into a state of pure alienness they refer to as _becoming_, their souls sold bare to the Chitauri blood that courses through their veins. They want to finish what I couldn't in New York. Don't take this opportunity to taunt me, please. Also, they don't like you SHIELD lot because _reasons_. I think I stopped paying attention around then. I expect they're about to do something terrible to underline their points. Tonight, like as not. They seem to be in a crescendoing hurry now that they've the attention they sought. It's annoying." They reached the closed and heavy door of Manfredi's office, Loki's hand reaching down to give it that magic jiggle.

Triplett absorbed the sardonic rundown, impressed and vaguely horrified. That went slightly beyond Coulson's concise summary_. _"How many in play have you seen?"

"Just that five you likely witnessed as well. Three male, two female. Their identities seem functionally subsumed. Didn't even care to cling to their names; at least I've never heard one. My sole jest to that went down like leaden smallclothes. The Manfredi creature is obviously in charge of this tiny hive. He has some unique shape left to his mind, some voice left to him. It slips away from him, however. No, we cannot play diplomacy with him. Too well gone for that."

"Uh..."

Something in his tone made Loki turn his head around very slowly to narrow his eyes at him. Under his hand, the door gave a soft click of release. "What?"

"There were a _lot _more than five people that were assigned to this place."

Loki's gaze unfocused for a moment, sharpened again. "Only six planes, however. The six that struck your depot..." He looked away, his face going dark and unreadable as he realized a slight error.

"Did you forget about one?"

Chilly silence.

"Dude."

"I have a great deal on my mind of late," snapped Loki, shoving the door open. He scanned the room quickly, ensuring no threat lay inside. Just the untouched laptop on the desk and the odd silver case. He turned back to Triplett, defensive. "Coulson only mentioned six once at the briefing. Five or six, what matters? What's one extra feeble creature?"

Triplett let the annoyance wash over him, unruffled. Everyone glitched once in a while. He was more concerned with the larger issue. "Yeah, well, the transfer notices for the staff here never went through. 'Bout sixty on jobs directly involved with the project, another couple dozen for facility upkeep, a few more for general purposes. Far as it looks, they're still here. Total headcount was around one hundred thirty, fudging for some changes that may have gone through shortly before they changed sides." Loki's eyes widened slightly at that, an expression creeping through them that unsettled Triplett. It looked like genuine worry. "And that's all the news I bring. So my two questions - what's below us and what's this new plan of theirs?"

Loki gestured at the laptop, settling into Manfredi's creaking office chair. "Shall we see if we can find out?"

"You sure you got that? If it's hard to crack, I might be able to boost a connection out to Skye and have her remotely hack it."

He creaked open the laptop easily, arching a single black eyebrow in amusement. "Hard to crack. That's cute," he said, swiftly dragging a fingertip across the tiny pad and whisking through admin routines. "Keep your senses alert if you would whilst you rummage around, I've no idea how long they'll be in their happy little bug mind-place."

. . .

Loki was still flicking rapidly through recently accessed documents on the laptop's drive when Triplett got to the silver case. He'd paid little attention to the human's efficient nosiness, glancing up once when the man patrolled to the door to ensure neither of them heard stirring from elsewhere in the facility. He'd found a thread of something and was working to piece it together before conferring with Coulson's man, acknowledging that he himself was lacking certain information that the other might well have.

Triplett fussed with the case, noting the same odd dials and other controls. Out of the corner of his eye, Loki noticed him press a button, and then jerk back with a curt "Jesus _crap!"_ as the case beeped and then gave up a sliding noise. He dragged his attention away from the screen to ask what deviltry the human was getting up to, when he saw for himself and paused with his words stuck to his throat.

The severed head in the revealed glass dome flickered its filmed, silvery gaze to his. The mouth of the obscenity worked noiselessly inside the buoyant, translucent gel that cushioned and held it in place. Wires and curling metal components trailed from the torn neck in lieu of tendon and nerve and artery, connecting to the base.

_My pride's under there, _said Manfredi. Despite his own comparatively mild shock, his mind quickly pieced the old man's face together and compared it with Manfredi's own. The wrinkled brows were the same shape, and the cast of the lips, and the curves of the once-dark eyes. "The father," he murmured, disgusted by the way the dead thing flexed and mutely whimpered in its domed case. "That Skull's loyal creature. They keep it now as some trophy."

"Silvio," confirmed Triplett, in a similarly low and startled voice. "What the hell?" The face in the case flexed and shifted, the mouth still crawling in almost recognizable patterns. _Please_ was clear. And _help_. "I think he can hear us." He reached out to the dials again, pausing over them. "It's like one of the old radio consoles. Except instead of receiving Little Orphan Annie, it's RKO Deadhead." He switched one of the dials fully on, hands moving expertly now that he had something to relate the device to.

_"__help," _came the gurgle, heavy and slow with the ooze the cords had to fight against.

"Turn it back off," snapped Loki, wheeling further away when Triplett didn't move to heed him. The flat, greyed-out eyes rolled back over to him, a keening noise coming through the speaker hidden somewhere in the base. He sneered back, freshly unnerved and determined to not show it. "A disgusting thing they've done here – turn it off and _kill _it."

"_Jo-jo-joseeeeph... madness..."_

"We got that loud and clear," said Triplett, shuddering when the eyes drifted against the clear sludge to meet his. He didn't notice Loki looking at the head with utter loathing. "Your son's in a bad place. Can you help us?"

_"files... Tabernacle. Tonight. Hurry."_

Reluctantly, but finding it a far better choice than the other grim view, Loki looked to Triplett and found a puzzled expression there. "I've found that word thrice thus far amongst relatively recent files. There's little new, for I think they bother with these tools seldom now. But that word - I think it's to do with their next operation; it ties to a number of things I find troubling and intended to inquire about. Does it mean anything to you?"

"Context? Because I don't want it to be the worst thing I can think of."

"Location coding."

Triplett swore, loud and sharp. "Yeah, that's the worst thing."

"Well, don't draw out the suspense, Triplett. Nobody likes it when_ I_ do it."

"It's another SHIELD complex, one of our central information and processing nodes. Like Adytum, but on 'roids. Mostly unmanned except when we send out runners to do upkeep, but still running smooth on auto. One of our guys monitors it all the time." He meant Koenig, but left that detail out. Coulson implied he wanted to be a little cagey about the Playground as far as Loki was concerned for a while yet. "That's not the problem. The problem is it's still slightly underground, yeah, but urban."

Loki rubbed two fingers hard across his tense brow, feeling a distinctly mortal headache thudding alive in the shape and weight of Coulson's conscience. "_Delightful_. How urban?"

"Oh, you know. Chicago. What they did in the desert, if they duplicated it there? Yeah, could get cover a million casualties if they get really energetic."

Loki gave him a long, cool look, almost forgetting they were being watched by a severed head. "So your people thought building something mission critical there was a grand idea."

"Facility predates the big city boom. Our predecessors built there 'cause of Fermi's involvement in the Manhattan Project. They could keep close watch over him at the uni."

"Magnificent. When does this get worse?"

The power flickered, died, and then came back, generator-dim. The laptop rebooted with a distressed chunking sound while the floating head kept its eerie pale glow. Triplett, his face half-lit, gave Loki a look that clearly said _why the hell did you say that?_

"This is not my fault." Silvio's loose jaw began to work again as Loki flailed his arm, the head readying itself for some new horrible series of pronouncements in the gloom. "None of this is my fault!"

_"__below," _added Silvio when the Asgardian temporarily ran out of steam. "_the becoming of... of the hive. Kill them. Kill me. Kill me. They wouldn't. Not m... my son. Not them. Hhhydra. They made me. Made me watch. Gift … for my son. I was. Maggia. Kill me."_

"Would you _please?!" _cried Loki.

_"__kill me."_

Triplett's lips were thin and almost ashy at the corners. "I- I don't know how."

The lights went out again. In the blackness, something crashed, followed by a wet, slick sound and a final thump. And then a slow fading wheeze that might have sounded like _thank you_.

. . .

Matsu'o watched the door of the underground facility slide open to reveal nothing but darkness. He let none of his trepidation show – without contact, without connection with the people inside, how could he know what this greeting meant? "Try again," he snapped at one of his companions.

"Sir, there is simply no response." A courteous, quick bow of the man's sleek head. "Perhaps the one we came for is already beginning his assault."

A possibility. One he himself already considered. It was well within the Asgardian's ability to destroy their power and work in the darkness alone. A smile played on his lips. Perhaps he might find a way to ingratiate himself – and lady Raina – further into this Blackwing's graces. Not only bearing a warning, but a timely rescue.

He barked an order to another of his Hand and prepared to go inside.

. . .

They did not need monitors, nor cameras. They did not need phones and long since disconnected all external signals. They needed no outside interference. Not when they were so close to forever being _one_. The hot, moist air filled with the scent of prey without and within. Their thoughts melded and slid against each other, a cacophony of discordant unity marred only by the limits of weak human flesh. They held firm to the hope that someday they could be lashed together properly with bone. Spirit first, and duty, and then the new flesh.

_Pet prince is faithless – he moves with the newling male, the spy and liar – smell the newcomers – he brings twelve – the two within – we should bring the faithless prince with us – yes – with us – when we become – when we go above – bring his corpse – the Titan will be pleased – we remember – keep the pact – we will break his body – they can remake him – if they like – if they choose – oh yes – but we will chastise him – for Silvio – smell his ruin – already dead – we want no gifts – tabernacle_

_let us destroy the tabernacle_

_it will be a gift to our lord_

_we will sing of ash and blood and bone and fire_

With a monstrous, inhuman smile, Manfredi took his hand off the secondary controls of the facility. The door would soon slide shut again, leaving all their guests trapped inside. His voice creaked as if it were already centuries since he used it last. "First. Before we destroy. Let them play against each other. The faithless prince is arrogant. They will weaken each other. We will watch. And then we will feed." He turned to the cavernous room and inhaled the comforting warmth and wetness of their bile and layered old flesh. Down the halls, always close, his companions – those pieces of Self too subsumed and not yet Become enough to think and fly like the chosen warriors – skittered, waiting their turn to go above. To see light again. And to snuff it out.

_They_ were many.

Today – _Today, _he delighted before letting his thoughts drift again into the pool of conjoined identity, would mark the final change.


	11. game over man

11\. bounce – game over man, game over

. . .

Director Coulson looked at the vast digital directory; scrolling blue lines of numbers marked for his access alone. Buried in its coded burner phone IDs and scrambled status updates was a vast amount of incredibly specific information. His gaze could pick out the piece of intel he wanted easily, if he looked close enough at the wall of data. The emergency contact information that would get him Nick Fury's own voice, live and in stereo. But the longer he stared, the less he wanted to find it. The less he knew what he wanted to say. Perhaps the only real option was to let the former director stay dark.

"Phil?" May's voice came filtering in over the intercom, the note of concern clear. "You rang me down."

"Yeah, come in." He glanced over as the door creaked open, the info on his screen winking at least temporarily out of existence. He put his arms down, noting that they ached a little. He'd been standing in the same position for probably too long; looking defensive and feeling it, too. "Sorry. I need someone to talk to, just for a moment. Bounce off a wall, so to speak."

She spread a hand at him, shutting the door of his office behind her as she approached. "Of course. About the mission?"

"Yeah. No." He shrugged. "Mostly yeah. But kinda no."

She went ahead and gave him a clear and readable expression of confusion, taking a seat on the other side of his desk. "Something's eating at you."

"Nothing like that." He picked up a pen from the organized array on his desk, fiddled with it, then put it back down. "Well, kinda."

She rubbed her forehead, noticing with absent care a chip on a single nail's dark polish. She curled her fingers and examined it. She kept her voice light, making sure he knew what she was about to say was a joke. "Phil, if you don't spit it out, I swear to God I will go find the biggest stick I can find on short notice and smack you with it _just once_. But it'll be enough to shake whatever it is out of you."

He laughed, if only a little. "Sorry. I shouldn't be bothering anyone else with this." He picked the pen up and shook it at the now blank display screen. "More to the point, I don't know _who _to bother with this. There's no manual. There's no spec script."

"Phil, you've always been a born leader. As long as I've ever known you, anyway."

"Yeah, and I've been one with a clear command structure behind me and decades of routine and contingency behind that. This is new. This is... it's not even about trying to make a new rulebook, May. It's that I have to do it over the rubble of other people's actions. And sometimes their mistakes."

She clasped her hands together on her lap, frowning thoughtfully at him. "It's not your leadership that's bothering you."

"Well, it is, kinda. But-"

"It's Fury's history."

He plucked the cap off the pen and waggled it between his fingers, letting the cap drop to the desk. She watched him, noticing how fidgety he was. Next he would start pacing after she left. Sometimes she wondered if it really was all just being cooped up for too long. She hid this worry with another curve of her lip.

Coulson walked to one end of the room, pointing at the blacked-out window with the pen. "The more I look, the more mistakes I find. More secrets I didn't even think existed. Nick Fury... I don't doubt that he had the best of intentions in mind as much and as often as possible. I don't doubt the fire and the need that drove his kind of leadership. But some of this crap is hanging together by dollar store spackle and chickenwire. With us in disarray, I'm afraid this thing in Montana is gonna end up being the least of our problems – and it's a pretty big problem, May."

"You sent Triplett in there with a hot bug up his butt and a package full of bad news, I know that much."

He turned back to her, his brow furrowed. "We get any contact back from either of them?"

She shook her head. "Matsu'o's in play by now, but there's been nothing from inside the facility. Skye's got everything monitored – hell, she retasked for a visual in case they end up making do with smoke signals or something."

"I don't like that."

"What's to like? I've got confidence in Triplett, though. So do you. And you, for what it's worth, have a strange amount of confidence in the other guy, too." She picked up the discarded pen cap and toyed it between her fingers, a single eyebrow raised.

He paced back to his desk and sat down at it, looking evenly across the top at her before plucking the pen's cap back. "If I'm extrapolating the right worst case scenario from Nick's notes on Blackwing, well, it's possibly as much his ass on the line as all of ours."

Her gaze flickered back up to his. "The Chitauri connection. You don't think he'll go back over the high side on this?"

"Absolutely not." A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "Huh." It faded, leaving him with a fleeting grin. "Nothing. Just thought of something else."

She tilted her head at him. "Okay?"

"Good talk, May. Thanks. I needed that."

. . .

"If your florid mortal notion of Hell holds any accuracy or merit, mine own damnation is almost certainly festooned with Chitauri." Loki's palm held light itself, the glimmer of it showing Triplett the control panel laid bare with its knot of archaic wiring and bulbs. The agent flexed the clippers in his hand, considering his next move. "If you let me punch that, I could probably simply force the system alight."

"I want to know how this place is wired up, okay? Your way might be fast and simple, but what I got in mind calls for a little finesse."

"You haven't bothered to confide your plan, I note. We've a few problems in play to complicate such matters."

"Wasn't much of one, yet, I admit. Boils down to the new priority. First, we got to get the word out about the Tabernacle plan, and we can't do that locked down in the darkness here with God knows what or who in here with us." Triplett tapped on the metal door of the cabinet with the wire clippers to make his point. "So, first, we get comms back online. Don't care the format. Hell, I'll send it out through Morse if it comes to that. It'll get picked up."

"I've no doubts on that score." A dry sniff from the dark shape behind the light. Something popped, then sparked. The gleam intensified as Triplett swore. "What happened?"

"Blew a sparkplug. God, I hate old government facilities. So damned cheap sometimes." He reached in and yanked a fistful of cord. Something snapped, then was drowned out by a low, buzzing hum. "Ow." Triplett shook his hand, then shook it again. "Hand me the laptop."

Loki plucked it from under his arm and opened it for the agent, the shadows shifting and moving as the light stayed aloft at a softly whispered command. He passed it down to Triplett's waiting hand. "Battery is, naturally, almost dead. Work quickly."

"You break admin control?" The dark eye flickered back over to him, his face half-lit in green and blues by the default OS background.

"It'll heed you without complaint." Loki looked away, his lips drawing into a thin line. "I'll say again, work quick."

Triplett opened up the network settings, not bothering to look up again. He could pick up on the demigod's fresh tension. Clearly he heard something. "Bug or ninja coming?" He jerked his head a little, making a face as he opened up the ports. "I think that's one of those phrases that's never been said by anyone before in the history of the world," he mused.

"Ninja," murmured Loki, his attention now fully elsewhere. "We've a little time."

"Place _is _a damn maze..."

"Wait," said Loki, his voice now entirely a whisper. He slid silently into the doorway of the large maintenance closet and seemed frozen there, his posture in readiness for something. Triplett kept working, the little wizard's light staying close to him.

When the single scream came, he nearly dropped the laptop. "What _the-"_

_"__Silence!" _Loki crouched, his voice a hiss pitched only for their little room. He pulled back in and shut the door with the softest click. When he looked over his shoulder, he found Triplett staring openly at him. "I think it might yet get a little worse."

. . .

Matsu'o shook the industrial LED flashlight in rage, nearly crushing it in his gloved hand. Fine control was still a daily task for him, the new flesh and steel tendons capable of so much more than he once knew. The light his flash gave shivered, highlighting the quivering man. "Explain again!"

"I don't know, sir! Something in the darkness!"

His soldier was dead white, his open fear stoking Matsu'o's fury. He snarled his response. "The alien toys with you! Have you any sign of the facility's men?"

The shorter man's mouth worked at him, eventually settling for a hard shake of his head. Unbelievable. One jump scare in the dark and his men scattered. Once that would have been an unthinkable outcome. Another of his Hand spoke up for the frightened figure, his voice stronger with the anger of the disbelieved.

"It was barely human, sir. It was crawling on the _walls." _

"An illusion, perhaps," he snorted. "Recall your debrief. Such things are this Loki's toys, and he sees fit to scare us. A pointless and weak move. Ghosts cannot hurt you." Matsu'o swiveled the flashlight around to light one of his more tech-savvy assistants. "Have you found a map?"

"Full system is down, sir... wait." The shadows followed the furrow of the man's brow. "Communications are coming back online just now."

"Cue in. Prepare to splice ourselves into the network. I've a few things to say, myself."

. . .

Skye lunged at the control panel as it picked up the faint, crackling signal from the underground facility. Without bothering to ask for permission, she routed it through the Playground's network directly to Phil's office, forcing the speaker online. It kept hissing static. "I'm cleaning it up," she blurted, slapping artlessly at the panel till she found the results she wanted. "Not trying to waste your time."

She muttered something. There it was – and then Triplett's voice rang through. It sounded like he was whispering, but at least he was close to the mic on his end.

_"__-nacle. Repeating now: Tabernacle location under threat. We are still onsite, Blackwing facility on lockdown. Hand onsite, no visual on any party at this time. We're assessing our next move and will try to make a play on our end. Cannot receive signal. Priority alpha is Tabernacle, they are going to hit Tabernacle." _

The audio cut out. She switched the network back to normal and rang down.

"Phil?"

His voice came through after a long few seconds, tight with tension. _"Skye, I'm gonna need a secure channel to US Air Force and HomeSec. Warn me before you've got it."_

"How secure?"

_"__Scramble the living crap out of it and then do it again."_

_. . ._

Triplett prepared to shut the laptop down, pausing as the speaker started to crackle. "I said we couldn't receive signal..." He dropped it back on his lap, tapping at it. "Internal communication is online."

_"__SHIELD Agents. Loki of Asgard." _The voice was smooth and cultured, implicitly hostile in its even tone.

"Not Manfredi?" Triplett glanced up at Loki for confirmation, who shook his head in response. "Tsurayaba. Hell."

"_Your attempts to deter us are in vain. Blackwing facility, you have been duped by one you might have been tricked into believing was an ally."_

Loki said something sharp and guttural that was clearly not in English nor any other human language, but the gist was remarkably universal.

_"__We are here by request of another party to help you resist the alien and remove him, without further risk to you, from your facility."_

Loki and Triplett shared a look that contained, among other things, a silent request for a stiff drink.

_"__We have come prepared-"_

"No you didn't, fool."

_"__-and are proceeding according to plan. Unless, of course, Loki, your betrayer, cares to surrender." _The audio cut out again.

A smirk in the gloomy dark. "This leaves us with a rather interesting question."

"Whassat?" Triplett closed the laptop with a click.

"Who will kill this idiot Tsurayaba first? Me – or the half-mad bug people downstairs?"

Triplett frowned down at the matte grey case of the computer, thinking. "They have no idea what they just walked into."

"Hence my question. It's ultimately to be a standoff, three sides against each other. And I intend to walk away from it. One way or another, young Agent Triplett. Do you?"

Triplett licked his lips, still thinking. "Standoffs suck. Lots of collateral damage. Way harder to walk away from those than you think." He glanced up to see Loki glowering at him. "I'm sure you can, man, I'm just saying, I think there might be a better strategy."

"Yes, and I considered much the same before discarding it over the whole implied alien autopsy sequence. I'm not going to _ally _with that idiot and his men, even temporarily. They won't listen to you, anyway." He flapped a hand dismissively.

"Depends."

"On what, you think?"

"If the bug people try too hard to spook them and give up the game. That's what that was, right? Freaked them out, they're extra pissed at you, and the Blackwing people mop up while we're busy with each other. That was the plan."

"So change the paradigm." Loki shrugged. "It's _valid, _even passably clever. But it relies on something not yet a certainty. Much less my dislike."

"What's your sense on the Chitauri collectively?" Loki made a drawn-out, derogatory noise by way of answer. "Exactly. Let 'em drag enough rope."

Loki looked away. "Meanwhile, I suppose your director would be appreciative if we could cobble some method of stopping or slowing this Tabernacle strike. Easiest method would be to break the planes. The Hand are between us and the hangar from here." He frowned, clearly thinking.

"Gotta be another way up."

The black-clad arms crossed, the frown deepening. "We go down."

"Wait. _Through _the bug people?" Triplett blinked rapidly. "I mean, yeah, there's probably a pretty straight path from residence towards the job, but-"

"Time's of some essence, yes? If we push, it may also push your notions into action. Also, by now they've almost certainly split. There's likely more on this floor than below. Perhaps. Regardless, the time for open conflict has come."

"Man." He hauled himself up to his feet, trying to still a nervous knot in his gut. He kept the laptop tucked under his arm. "I didn't sign up for an indie _Aliens _stage production."

Loki's face was blank. "I didn't follow that."

"Never mind. You ever notice a weapons room while you were in here?"

"No." Loki's lips curved into a bitter, almost hungry smile. "I suppose you'll just have to let me do this part my way."


	12. let's make a deal

12\. art critique – let's make a deal

. . .

Loki hesitated, then yanked the metal poster-frame off the wall in a single quick motion. The brittle plastic cover of the frame snapped and crackled as he slid the laminated map of the facility out to study it closely, letting the rest of the wreckage slip to the ground. "Useful," he murmured, noting absently that there was no immediate reaction down the tunnels to his noise. Also useful. He looked at Triplett, the other man going the faintest bit grey at the corners of his lips as he studied of the new view what he could. "They likely removed the rest elsewhere in the facility above, but didn't bother with this one. What visitor would get so far as this?"

Triplett lifted the little wizard's light to get a better look at the narrowing halls that branched off from the small room at the base of the staircase. He kept the mostly-dead laptop pinched underneath one arm. His nose crinkled at the mingling smells of spit and bile and sweat, realizing his own pits were already dampening from the heavy humidity that filled the changed tunnels the Blackwing lived in. "I was not joking upstairs. I did not sign up for this Giger crap. When I said that, man, I didn't think it was going to get _literal_."

Loki lifted a single eyebrow as he rolled up the map. Gesturing for the agent to take it from him, he said, "As I reckon it, if you work for SHIELD, you did indeed sign up for this sort of madness." He plucked the light from Triplett's palm and set it aloft, marking it to follow his orders afresh. "Case in point," he finished, gesturing at himself and taking in the view properly at last.

Now a hive in some truth, the facility had done _something _to its living quarters. The walls were slick with saliva and thickened into new shapes using masses of pasted papercraft. More fragile crackling swirls and whorls served as confusing decoration. He looked at the ceiling above, noting the bubbling texture that followed the ceiling. "Like your wasps," he murmured. "Did what they could with their own fluids and shed flesh. Probably flit out at night to collect more plant material. Either that, or they had about a hundred magazine subscriptions for some decades apiece. I've seen those National Geographics. Could do a solid amount of work with just those."

"Chitauri usually like this?" Triplett slowed his breathing and flared his nose to get used to the smell. He hadn't gagged so far. He was _not _going to start now.

"This is substantially more primitive, though I confess I know little about their home proper. Their ships... well, some of the architectural flair is close. They do not swaddle their homes in their own mess, however, that I've ever seen." He shrugged. "These creatures are clearly making it up as they go, trying to hew as close to their ill-fitted instincts as they can. Incidentally, what's a Giger?"

"A really amazing European artist that painted a lot of messed up stuff 'cuz he had the worst nightmares _all the time_. Night terrors. Add a bunch of green paint, smooth some of this out, squint a little and it's close to some of his stuff."

"So not _that _close, really." Loki sent the hovering light out to drift a few yards down one of the tunnels. "Westward, northerly, and then possibly up. There'll be a few T-junctions to navigate, hence why we keep the map."

"What if they've closed off some halls with this crap?"

"We punch through. This stratagem applies also to any resistance. We can handle a few, and I wager they'll come in small packs at first. If they do at all."

Triplett swallowed hard as the acrid stench continued to sting his nostrils, glancing down at his plain navy hoodie. "I don't think there's a dry cleaner on the planet ready for the aftermath of that."

"I've already accepted I'm incapable of owning an intact suit for longer than five hours at this point, Agent Triplett. The least you can do is sacrifice an easily replaceable offering from an outlet mall." Loki snorted.

"I paid full retail. Don't get your sass on there, Professor Snape. Save it for the bug people."

"There's _plenty_ of that to go around. Or are your children not taught to share?"

"How the hell is Coulson putting up with you?" Triplett bent and yanked off one of the long edges of the map's broken frame with his free hand. It wasn't strong, but it _was _metal, and it held a sharpish point on the end. It'd do until he found something better.

"A fine question, one I ask regularly. Down the left corridor. Don't trip on the bug vomit."

. . .

Coulson scowled at the dual display. On his left was General Talbot of the USAF, and fortunately, he could see the man without the man seeing him. On his right, connected to Homeland Security's secured line, there would be no display for either party. Only audio. Not optimal, but the best Skye could get him in the timeframe he wanted.

Now the _real_ hard part was getting these chuckleheads to listen to him.

Talbot ran over him again when he tried to outline the situation. "Look, you guys are dead and gone. Cobbling together a story to rustle our britches, Coulson, isn't going to make you into a new savior. Isn't going to make me stop coming after you. That may have worked for Walsingham back in the day, but you don't have a sponsor with you to pull it off now."

The guy on the HomeSec line snorted. Coulson bit back his irritation and tried again. "My admiration for your knowledge of history aside, Talbot, I'm not jerking you around. You need to prepare to land or move civilian planes around the Chicago area and watch for incoming. We've got a scenario in the vault you can use to keep people from tweaking out until an evac gets called for but-"

"Save it. There's no _threat._" Talbot looked down at something Coulson couldn't make out, his eye twitching in anger hard enough to ruffle his mustache. Coulson caught himself staring at it in equal parts annoyance and amusement._ "_Deustch, these guys are rattling the garbage cans to prove they're still in the game."

"A million potential casualties is not how I start a damn _game, _General!" Coulson snapped the words, his amusement gone. "Your intel can verify we've got a dead site there and I'm telling you the threat is active."

The HomeSec guy tried to cut in while Coulson watched Talbot shift in open irritation. "We can verify this Tabernacle site's existence. You're claiming this is connected to the recent Nevada event?"

"I am, Mr. Deustch. Sorry, I didn't catch your rank."

"You don't need to know it. Air Force verified to us that was a one-off. Training accident from Creech. Regrettable but not unusual."

"That's a load of crap." Coulson punched at his tablet while Talbot exhaled through his nostrils. "I don't know who fed you that line. I don't even think it was Talbot here. I'm going to send a single file through a drop-network that verifies it was our property that got smacked. This is more of the same."

"Deustch, these guys don't play straight."

The audio crackled slightly as the unseen Deustch focused on his counterpart. "Did _your_ people? What happened in Nevada, General?"

Skye texted up a verification that the file was on its way. Meanwhile, Talbot said nothing for a long moment. "I don't know. The Nevada thing didn't come across my desk. It's pending."

Coulson heard a chime from the audio feed and crossed his arms to listen to the results. To be slightly fair, Talbot was right on one score – Tabernacle wasn't dead yet. Koenig was backing up what prioritized intel he could, but it would take days to move the entire contents of the site. Some of the contents would have to be moved physically. If the place survived current events, it _would _be a dead site in short order afterward. Along with any other depots near heavy-population areas, so long as it was possible.

He was going to learn from Fury's mistakes. All of them.

"Gentlemen-" he started, then paused again when Deustch cleared his throat.

"What I got here, Coulson, tells me between the lines that you're talking straight about the Nevada site."

He ignored the brief taste of relief. The conversation wasn't over yet. "I am."

"Training accident. General, you want to change your story?"

The faintest rush of red crawled up from the blue-collared throat straight to Talbot's cheeks. "I told you-"

"Yeah, I heard. Coulson, we're not friends. Now, Talbot's a jackass, but he's a trustworthy jackass. This is some cut-loop crap."

The red turned slightly purple. Coulson watched the change continue to crawl up to the man's forehead, privately delighted with the effect.

"Regardless of what yesterday or tomorrow means for all three of us as golf buddies, what I want to hear from you right now is what your plan of action is to stop this mess before it gets going, and then what this vaulted backup plan of yours is. You sound insistent, so I'm gathering we're short on time."

"We're calculating sometime tonight."

"Well, hell." An audible sigh. "Talbot, you interrupt, I'm going upstairs through a mutual friend and kicking your ass personally. Let's talk mission priority."

_Whoever the hell you are, Deustch, I owe you a bottle and a new golf club. _Coughing once into his hand to indicate he was starting, Coulson got talking.

. . .

The first pack of changelings came down on them in the second hallway after a thickly clogged junction, scuttling low across the floor. Loki's now-flaring light caught the leader's feral-eyed, glassy, watery stare and Triplett was forced to stare at the way the man's hands gnarled and clutched at the damp floor. The way the fingernails split all the way up into the tearing flesh below the joint, the ruins flexing against the wet floor as the snarling figure moved towards them. The body was ghastly thin. Not like the pilots that could still pass for human aboveground.

Then the pack leader's face was abruptly gone, the flaring light in Loki's hands becoming something _more. _Without heat, without noise, it leapt from the pale palms and plunged towards the scuttling man. It buried itself in the yowling visage and then winked out for a split-second. As it faded, Triplett watched the rest of the face fade away, too, becoming something like ash.

_Welp. Gonna dream of that later, _he thought, before tightening his grip on the thin metal bar. The light sprang into existence again, showing the three stunned companions of the deceased were now ready to try their chances, too. They lunged.

They died in a flash of light and clanging metal against bone. Triplett grimaced at the already bent ad hoc weapon in his tight fist. "You were right."

"Can say that all day if you like; won't trouble me."

"Don't start. They're weak, these guys. Trying to eat like the aliens do or something. They're messing themselves up. The change not taking right?"

"As if I'd know or care."

"Rhetorical question, man." Triplett stepped over the dust. "But if they get wise and come at us in a big group... that's not rhetorical."

For that, Loki gave no answer. Just a terse, thin frown.

. . .

_they are afraid - Only a little - Stink like fear, like us - like our holes – chase them out – run them towards each other – faithless prince hides fear but he STINKS – feed yet? - feed – feed – FEED!_

_. . ._

Matsu'o put pride aside and ran, gloved hands holding the flashlight in a firm and steady grip as he led his dwindling group down the narrow office hallways. From behind and catching up too quickly was a wet hissing and the sounds of many limbs scuttling. One of his Hand waved an arm towards a side direction. "Defensible room! That way, that _way!"_

Good enough. He steered his people towards it and helped clang the door shut, holding it with all his new strength. The sounds outside began to drift away again with incomprehensible, agonized chittering. "Assessment?" He asked the question through clenched teeth.

The answer was hesitant, coming from the tech that had cut into the comm network. "Tsurayaba, sir. I must apologize – is this truly the work of our target?" He bobbed his head once, frantic. "We've seen no sign of the facility's people."

"Perhaps the alien already killed them all." He relaxed his grip slightly, ready to force the door again should something heave against it.

Another footsoldier spoke up, grim. "Or perhaps we _have _seen the people, sir. These are not illusions chasing us."

Matsu'o grimaced, his shoulder still pressed against the only safety he could promise his people. On the other side was silence. On his side was grudging knowledge. A leader must listen to his men. Acceptance of change would restore their now shaky faith in him. He permitted a slow nod. "We did not lose two men to illusion. I must agree. The Asgardian is powerful, but this may well not be his work. Nowhere is the rumor that he himself creates such things."

"He might lead them," offered his tech.

"Perhaps. But..." Wisdom struck him and he contemplated it. "He does not brag over the comm. I do not hear his arrogance, of which there _are _many rumors." Matsu'o shook his head, tamping down confusion and anger. "I must accept we do not know the truth of the situation. I will not accept that we are trapped here." It occurred to him – was the alien man fighting within these twisting hells as well? A grimace crossed his lips and he glanced again at his tech. "Get me another broadcast."

. . .

Feedback cut through the air, damped down by the thick climate and muffled by layers of grotesque paper mache. "What the hell?" Triplett ducked down, instincts alerted but body still in motion. "God, I'm not going to enjoy being chittered at in stereo in the dark if that's what's about to happen."

Loki grabbed him by the shoulder and guided him towards a side hallway while the feedback continued to shriek. _"Channel scan. Look for our static." _Tsurayaba's terse voice cut out, taking the feedback with it.

"Can you?" Loki asked, tension sliding back into his voice.

"If the laptop boots one more time then I can check any local transmissions, yeah." He shrugged, emphasizing the 'if' and looking around for someplace to hunker down in. "Spot any hidey-holes?"

"Come. Follow close. We'll backtrack just a little."

. . .

_"__Pingback if you receive. Pingback if you receive. Pingback if you-"_

Triplett fussed, forcing out a response signal once he had the right frequency narrowed down. Next to him, Loki crouched low against the grate. "You mighta warned me our best option was ventilation. Doesn't smell any better in here."

"Just don't wiggle overmuch and we won't draw attention. This is more defensible than the halls, and too many rooms are welded behind bugmuck." He turned his head to listen as the static began afresh, narrowed to the low volume of the laptop.

_"__Agents of SHIELD. Loki of Asgard. Channel may not be secured. Can you transmit?"_

"We gotcha."

A long pause answered that. "Oh for-" Loki reached across Triplett and found the command he was using to toggle transmission. "Yes, I am here as well." His voice grew dour. "We really must stop meeting like this. Underground lairs, no one having a good time. Unpleasant."

_"__That is the voice I was prepared to hear. These creatures are not yours."_

"No one trusts me to tell the truth. But I claim this as some rare form of that truth regardless – they are not _my _creatures."

_"__I believe." _The voice was grudging. Loki shared a look of sour humor with Triplett. _"We began at cross purposes. For your truth I will set aside my mission and re-assess it."_

Triplett cut in. "You clear that with Raina?"

_"__I have not. She understands the value in changing plan. She would be sympathetic to a desire to leave a mission alive, as well. I cannot deliver the alien to her if we are all dead."_

Loki didn't look particularly mollified, but Triplett took it as something, anyway. "Well, I'll throw you another bone. Any of you got family in Chicago?"

More silence.

"If there's a yes in there, they'll die if we don't shut this place down hard and fast."

_"__The planes. We passed them."_

"Can you get back to them?"

_"__We're cut off." _Scrambled sounds filtered through. _"That is your target. I'll assume you're working on your own path there. We'll distract what we can, forge some road."_

"The creatures are fragile enough; unhealthy and wasting. You came armed to deal with me. You'll be able to take more than you know, so long as you are _not _caught unawares. Watch all sides – and watch the ones that are most human yet. They will be deadlier." Loki let go of the laptop again.

_"__My gratitude." _The words were stilted. _"Until the threat is lessened, on my honor-" _Triplett caught the demigod muttering _toss your honor. _Not thinking at first, he patted at Loki's arm comfortingly. The look he got in response was worth it. "_We will not knowingly open fire on your team."_

"Oh, lovely, thank you _so _much," drawled Loki, with just enough tact to not snide his way all over an open comm. He let Triplett finish the actual conversation, leaving the rest of his own opinion silent on his face.

"Dude. It's the best outcome we could get."

"It will be the best outcome if these half-Chitauri slaughter them before we must deal with the aftermath of this bargain. I don't trust them."

"That is _rich _coming from you."

"But not hypocritical. The deal is narrow and timed thin. Ask a liar and equivocator the worth of a hasty deal and I'll tell you it's not much." He reached out a pale finger and flicked at the battery bar display on the laptop. "Fret at it later if we must. Plan is unchanged for now. Let's press on."

"Wish I could get some of their weapons. I hate playing flank guard with a stick."

The light in Loki's hands flared once more, sliding out of the shaft to fill the hallway and casting thick shadows along the warping architecture. "So little faith in magic?"

"Kind of a new experience for me."

"Ah, well. Perhaps in time."


	13. sweet mother night

13\. positive ions or something – sweet mother night

. . .

Matsu'o led his men from their defensible room and down back the way they came, the Hand unstrapping the armaments once meant to subdue a single man whose otherworldly capabilities could never be guaranteed facts. Among the tools were stun-sticks and modified shotguns loaded with flashbangs and hard impact shot; sonic weapons and medicated tracer rounds. At a muttered command, these less-lethal implements were safely put away in pockets and bags and the standard backups locked and loaded instead. Along with a few other more interesting contingency devices.

Like his paused prey, Matsu'o held few compunctions about the need to kill when there was a need to survive. No soldier of the Hand would feel otherwise and retain his position. Even the tech, whom Matsu'o kept huddled and protected in the center of his band, now wielded a top of the line small rifle bearing an altered laser sight. Matsu'o himself kept a sleek firearm holstered at his waist, but in these close quarters he was prepared to favor his new and better weapons.

Inside the thin black gloves, his steel-boned fingers flexed. _Fragile, _described Loki regarding their mutual opponents. He would see for himself what could come of that advice. And quite soon, he thought, as his attention was drawn away by soft sounds.

His gaze narrowed, picking out movement in the darkness far ahead. His second paused as he saw the same thing as his leader, gesturing for the others to take safe and ready positions. "Many," said Matsu'o through tight teeth, his hands clenched. "They come. Let us clear our good enemy's path a little."

"We are ready!" cried his soldiers. He allowed himself some pride in that this time, when the unearthly screeching began to crawl out of the dark and increasingly heavy air towards them, no warrior wavered.

. . .

Triplett ducked into a low, tactical crouch as the boom echoed through the ceiling in a rippling wave of sound and vibration; his reflexes checking for damage around him and his hands at the ready for approaching threats. All around him, the wizard's light marked out the changed architecture of the halls in sharp, unfriendly white. "Clear," he said, ignoring that he didn't have a full squad at his back.

"That was once to be meant for me," muttered Loki, visibly less impressed with the sudden implied show of violence above. He reached out and yanked once at Triplett's arm, bidding him to keep following. Now was not the time to stop their grim little march. "It's just _so _pleasant when guests arrive properly ready. And what dim vault of SHIELD's did that little toy get hoisted out of, you think?"

"I dunno, but I'd like to buy three right about now."

Loki sighed. "There are some days I truly regret dropping such a fine example of our technology on your little podunk town."

Triplett stared at his tall, black-clad back, nonplussed.

Loki continued, seemingly unaware of the response he was drawing. "Treated our Destroyer like a slaughtered deer. Not a whit of it gone unused. Someday I expect I'll check into a hotel and find the installed hairdryer upgraded for, I don't know, super-fast drying capability. Contained Asgardian inferno, now with argan." He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder as Triplett continued eyeballing him. "Don't ask me what that means. I saw it on a box."

"Are you for real right now?"

A weary sigh. "You're simply not as fun to toy with as Coulson. He'd fire back, like as not with something ridiculously inane about hair care products. And then in response I'd note his increasingly thin hairline. Thus, the balance is maintained." Another boom rumbled through the ceiling plates, striking deep cracks into some dried-out portions of the Chitauri paper mache. Flecks of rank, grey paper drifted down onto the pair. His dour expression brightened slightly. "On happier consideration, the more they blast the creatures, the less they've got to backstab us with later."

. . .

Matsu'o let go of his attacker, letting the spindly, wasted figure drop bonelessly to the metal-plated floor. With a casual flick of his wrists, he snapped the joints of his fingers back into place and waited for the next to come at him. They were not wise opponents when conjoined in this strange fray of hive-men. They threw themselves at the Hand for some nameless purpose – to kill, to feed, to delay. He supposed he did not care _that _much as to the why, only that they thought to place themselves between him and his honorable duty. That they had been willing to trick him into some purpose of theirs, and end him and his men in their darkness.

_The alien was right_, he mused, enthralled by his tamed emotions and love of battle, a trusty tool that fed on conflict. Another thin, bony figure scuttled from behind some forgotten, dusty object in the still-dim hallway. It lunged towards him before his second could draw down on the target. The rest of his men were busy cutting down several targets of their own. No matter. His new hands, remade by science after the forge of a demon's grasp destroyed flesh and bone, clasped easily around its throat. He ended its life in a creaking, abrupt rattle. He dropped it beside its deceased companion, then turned his head to glance at his tech, the question clear.

"We cannot breach back to the hangar from here, sir. Not yet."

"Any clue as to where SHIELD and the other will emerge from?"

"No, sir."

"We continue to abide by our word. Prepare another volley and we'll press on." The tech hesitated at the command, a line appearing between the man's brows. "I am aware this will continue to draw their attention." He nodded once, permitting the tech to air his worry.

"We did not bring supplies for a sustained assault."

"I doubt we must commit to one. Press on."

. . .

"Sounds like they're holding up their end." Triplett craned around the junction, looking for movement and finding none. The floating light scouted further ahead and then hovered, awaiting its master's command. "That crash, that was behind us, right?"

"Yes. I expect at least one of the hallways we came through is now full of broken rubbish. Hardly matters; we're well past the midpoint of the floor and ought just push quick as we can to an exit. We're not far from the hangar, I think."

Triplett ducked back, then checked again down the hall they'd come from. Wouldn't do them any good to get jumped. He pulled out the rolled map and passed it to Loki, who barely spared it a glance. "Any idea where on that we are?"

"With the organic changes to the structure, I'm not perfectly certain. Mostly, but not perfectly. We're quite deep in the residential halls. If we keep to the path I planned, then I can at least be relatively sure we're on the right road out." He paused and pulled back the light, dimming it and squinting with his own eyes instead. He reached out a hand to Triplett's shoulder, tugging him back. "Wait."

Triplett hardened his grip on the trusty piece-of-crap metal bar, stepping to Loki's side. He tried to peer into the gloom and couldn't find what Loki clearly could. He glanced to his right and noticed the man was standing at rigid attention, ready for – what?

A low, sonorous creak came down the widening hall. "You're too close to our nests, failed prince. The echo and the war above give you away to us here. The ripples in the air sing of you. Failed, forgotten, condemned prince." The last word came out in a drawling hiss, old and rattling and devoid of emotion. The figure stepped closer and Triplett recognized the dark uniform first, if not able to piece together any recognition for the still-human face.

The sixth pilot.

. . .

She took a single step closer, one hand raised. In the harsh light, her teeth gleamed at them with the promise of feeding well and fully. The canines were filed and kept sharp, clicking as she continued to croak at them with a disused voice. "Manfredi-mind set this one to watch over the changing. In the night, in the dark where we are at our best. We are mother here, mother night, when we do not fly with the rest of the one. And here you are. Our young are under your threat."

Loki's voice came in a whisper so soft and low that Triplett would later wonder if he'd heard it with his ears at all. _"I'm half-sick of monologues and madness in this place. Expect quick violence, and protect yourself down a close hall if you can." _Then he stepped back once more, away from the slowly approaching figure.

"We are _awake, _prince. One more time, will you take us home to our lord and king, the divine God of our cosmos?"

Triplett knew a cue when he heard one. He tensed his body, ready to dive.

The response came from the demigod, low and full of deadly threat. A hand raised, full of light and rage and glittering with ice in place of fire. "Absolutely _not!"_

Triplett prepared his dodge and then froze, realizing the trap that was coming alive around them as the walls began to move and clawing sounds crawled up from behind them. Instead of fleeing, he stood his ground and readied the broken metal stick.

_We are awake!_

The night mother's pack swarmed towards them as one, pouring from side halls and from within weakened constructs of paper, never dodging as Triplett began to lash out. Then the screaming began. And the fangs. And the _ice. _

Triplett heard rather than saw the papered walls crack around them at first. In startled fascination, he managed to steal enough of a glance to see incongruously pretty patterns of frost begin to flow across the rest of the surfaces around them,. They were quickly followed by frozen spears born tall and sharp of all the humidity and rank air inside the tunnels. Razor-tipped points were breaking free without being touched, finding a place in the air around Loki.

Without thinking, Triplett first kicked the closest of the wild pack in the throat and then spun to kick hard at one of the larger growing icicles until it broke. It burned cold in his hands when he grabbed for it, but one good stab at an attacker and it beat the hell out of the metal frame. He forgot the bone-deep chill spreading through his hands and dove into the fray, not leaving Loki's side as the now-raging demigod controlled the air itself with quick, elegant motions. Chips of ice flung out from him like daggers, freezing thin blood where it struck against the walls.

The pilot woman screamed something unintelligible and furious, taking a piece of ice high along a cheek. The new scar instantly froze into a thin red line. She fled down the halls and out of sight, a handful of the remaining pack remaining with her as a guard. "We're going to run exceedingly low on time," Loki snapped, the target of his ire decidedly not the ally at his side. He still busy with three would-be Chitauri that managed to dodge his first volley, slinking far closer than he preferred. "That one was smart. If she gets too far-"

Triplett swung low and dropped one of Loki's three, buying the Asgardian enough time to freeze a second into place and slide the third away from him into a crashing tumble. "They get a head start on firing up the planes. Way ahead of you on that bad news."

He grinned through bared teeth. "Well then, Agent. Since you did not flee when you could, I suppose you might then prefer to _chase_."

. . .

Matsu'o whirled at the growing sounds of crashing ice and roaring rage. "North stairwell! More coming, with pursuit in tow."

His men took firing positions. "_Sir!"_

"Wait for my order!"

They waited, tense amidst their own lull in the fight to survive, until a screaming band boiled out of the staircase towards them. Gunfire filled the air when Matsu'o was certain that he was not about to break his oath. The leader – one of the still-human ones he'd been warned of – dropped and began to scuttle away down the closest hallway as her companions died from the onslaught. He snapped his fingers at two of his soldiers, who scrambled to their feet at the command. "Try to corner them!"

Two figures remained in the stairwell to watch what was going on, one on either side of the door. One he recognized instantly, the other only from vague memories of a landed plane in a dark swamp. "Your others?"

"Only us, dude."

Matsu'o blinked, taking in the pair. The alien's suit was ragged and oddly frosted along the arms, and his fingertips still seemed to glow with some unknown power. The dark-skinned agent looked weary, wincing as his own hands flexed now and again. "You have no small bravery to stand all but alone."

"Yeah, go with that," muttered the alien. "Can you be sure your men will stop her and have you seen any others with a functioning brain?"

"Yes, Asgardian. And no."

Loki shook his head, taking a slow breath while he could. Glancing down, he saw Triplett working his hands together. His eyes narrowed. "I don't like that. Pilots are being cagey. Time thins."

Matsu'o tapped the palms of his black gloves together once, politely. "We've cleared almost to the hangar. I am bound by my promise. Together, then. Shall we break through and end this?"

Triplett nodded. "Y-"

Loki interrupted him smoothly. "A single moment," he said, then dragged Triplett back into the hall and out of sight just as a new commotion filled the room outside. By the yell, it sounded like the Hand's men cornered 'mother night.'

"The hell?" Triplett tried to struggle free, causing a rip in his sleeve.

"Your hands. Give them to me. You're getting frostbite."

"For some reason, I thought magic ice wouldn't do that." Now more confused, Triplett let Loki grab both his wrists in turn, waving over them with his free hand. Tingling heat filled his fingers and thrummed down startled nerves. "Ow!"

"You're fortunate to not be burned through the bone. A brave enough stunt, but no, magic ice can harm like any other kind. And worse, besides." His voice was curt.

Something in the tone told Triplett to let it go, so he did. "Thanks." His response was a muttered and grudging noise. "You're a seriously weird dude."

That managed to draw out a thin smile. "Well. As the man suggests... Let's end this."


	14. everything burns

14\. everything burns

. . .

Matsu'o seemed to be as good as his word. The halls were lined with pockets of dead half-Chitauri. Triplett tallied it up as they marched, figuring they'd probably knocked back about forty percent of the estimated changing residents between the upstairs and the downstairs. But still, none of the pilots were among them - save for the 'mother' that they'd pushed out of the warrens. She was being hauled along with the motley team, eyes bound and constantly being fired questions about the other five pilots. Where they were, what they were doing. They got nothing in response. She might as well be already dead.

Triplett had to agree with Loki. That was troubling.

"They know," muttered the demigod, dour. "Bind her, kill her, let her go. All the same. It doesn't matter any longer. They're linked. They know what she knows, and she knows the path we were taking. If the rest aren't already in the hangar readying themselves, they're going to be right up our arses." His gaze flickered down at Matsu'o. "She's no good as a hostage, either."

"If we do not leave with _you_, Asgardian, perhaps she will serve as a replacement. This place is a curiosity. Our benefactor enjoys her curiosities."

"This place should be burned to the ground and left fallow for a generation as a warning to not meddle too far or too deep in mysteries best left to others."

Matsu'o nodded. "I agree, having seen. But a souvenir?"

"That's functionally how this ruddy mess started, I note; sprouted from the better intentions of men who believed themselves wise enough." There was no good cheer in Loki's voice. It found no response from the Hand.

. . .

The stench filled the hall. A handful of Matsu'o's men gagged at it, hands flying to their throats without shame. "It was worse downstairs," shrugged Triplett, helping Matsu'o's tech run a 3-D deepscan on the blockage. "I got used to it. Sucks, though. Sticks to your clothes. Hangar door is definitely on the other side."

Loki regarded the quickly cobbled together construction of waste, disregarded office furniture, and, most troublingly, a number of sacrificed half-Chitauri. "A last ditch method of slowing our approach. Going to be a reinforced door, I'm sure. Can we breach this thing open without managing to roast ourselves?"

Triplett yanked the tablet from the tech, watching data roll by. "Yeah, just maybe," he mumbled, thinking fast. "You guys got any of that mortar-style ordinance left?" He looked up, finding a few hesitant nods. "'Kay. We're going to rig up a fast and funky shape charge. We do it just right, and believe me when I say I've had practice, the charge pops the door, too. Loki?"

"You need an initial carve into the blockage to force the energy properly where you want it, and since we lack an industrial flamethrower..."

"You got it."

"I'll be done by the time you're ready."

. . .

There was only disconcerting silence when ears stopped ringing in the wake of the controlled explosion. The exposed hangar sat in full darkness, framed by the hot, curling metal blown inward. If there were preparations afoot, they used no lights, and no active machines were visible. That meant little in an automated era. Triplett squinted against the gloom. "Screw it. Let's get in there and blow 'em up before they take off."

"Wait," cautioned Matsu'o, his hand raised. "Movement."

"Yes," whispered Loki, almost a hiss. "The last of them. So few left, but they'll die for their leaders."

A growl came, uttered low from somewhere inside the hangar, fading back. The raucous screech of metal replaced it, followed by a brightening light that was quickly recognized as the opening outer door. A red gleam flickered from outside – the runway was automatically lighting up. The Hand's men readied their weapons. Triplett looked around for a spare and didn't find one. The Hand were being stingy. At this point, he was entering a state of permanent annoyance. It didn't help that Loki's distrustful predictions nagged at the back of his mind, fed by their clear disadvantage of numbers alone. "They're about to fire up!"

The night mother began to laugh, a harsh caw better suited to scavenger birds. "Let us fly! _Let us fly! Our God is waiting!"_

Disgusted, Matsu'o shoved her aside. She dropped to the ground, still laughing. "What god?" he asked. "What does she go on about?"

"Madness and the nothingness of madness." Loki waved a hand as the woman's laughter grew louder and her words grew more mangled. Triplett shot him a look, marking that down. Maybe it was nothing. And maybe Loki just did _something _to garble the woman's voice with that casual flick of his hand. "Triplett has the right of it. We need to press, and now. They get to the runway, and your city is lost." He shoved his way past the Hand's warriors and strode into the hangar, hands again full of light.

Matsu'o refused to let it seem as if the alien had taken control. He gestured forward without hesitation. "Attack!"

. . .

They flowed from underneath the aircraft as the war machines began to slowly roll into ready positions – the chocks released and shoved aside, no longer necessary. They flowed from service rooms and wells set into the floor for maintenance work. Only a few dozen now, but in the dim and din, it sounded countless. Through their frantic dance of motion it was hard to pick out the pilots themselves. Perhaps they weren't there to be seen.

Triplett could see the door to the control room, a wide office with a window looking down onto the hangar. At least one still had to be in there, overseeing the automated fire-up sequences that did most of the mental heavy-lifting for experimental craft. With the night mother still slumped outside the hangar, that meant there were potentially four among their assaulters; four with enough mind and enough strength to be the real threats if they were in the fray. He hoped they weren't. Whether they were in the planes yet, he couldn't tell – the acrylic canopies were tinted dark. "Crack the gears if you can! Slow 'em down!"

"The cockpits?" The tech snapped the question his way, lifting his weapon to aim. He ducked again as something flew at him – loose tools were being flung through the air as opportunity struck the changeling Chitauri.

"Guarantee they're bullet and crack resistant. Gears are easiest, then we can pop at engines and machinery. Look close for exposed spots!" He scrabbled when a wrench hit the ground near him. Screw the melee – there was a plane starting its roll just fifteen feet away from him. He took off for it, already picking out batches of wiring and other crap to start tearing up.

A sharp snap of light filled the hangar, pure power arcing from the charging Loki. Four changelings dropped before him as his gaze swept around for the next target. Nostrils flared, scenting something on the new wind entering the bay. "Some planes do hold their cargo, Triplett. Be-"

The canopy above the frantically working agent pulled open before the demigod could finish. Triplett looked up into the face of a dead-eyed pilot, mouth frozen in an inhuman snarl. He made sure his hand was touching only the rubber wrap that made up the center of his wrench and then tore up a mess of wires, flinging them up at the figure and quickly rolling away to safety. More light snapped, sharp and blue and followed by a dying screech.

Howls in frightening unison answered it – from the prisoner, from the remaining planes, and from the control room. Matsu'o's men focused on the three planes that were now certain to be manned and opened fire. Countless bullet holes appeared; a searing laser cutting through wheels and plastic cording as the tech sped away towards another target. "Man, why does nobody share with me anything useful?" Triplett watched the tech deftly light up his cutter with one hand, grasping at the wheel well of another moving plane. Something in grey rags plunged at the tech and Triplett reared back, chucking his wrench in a calculated arc. The attacker dropped, and the tech whirled to look at him, head nodding once in gratitude and surprise.

Loki meanwhile carved his way towards the control room, knowing it would be Manfredi himself inside. While the fray continued behind him, he put his hand on the locked door and bade it open. "Your warriors die. Your father is dead. Now, I suppose you'll die as well," he remarked to the growing crack, as if discussing a fine day's weather at Sunday brunch. "I'll not abide your feeble, fangless taunts again. Let's make this a certainty."

An explosion burst from within, scorching the door black and staggering him for several seconds. Sounds went dull and distant and were replaced by a high and twee ringing that was nothing like the great bells of Asgard.

_"__Loki!" _he heard, muddy and slow from somewhere else in the slow time that flowed around him. He blinked and shook his head, fresh anger spilling in to replace the old. He heard his name again from that worried Triplett and ignored it, pushing forward once more as a drop of blood spilled from his face to his shirt. That would heal, too. His enemy would not.

Manfredi plunged out the broken door at him, wild and unafraid and half-burnt by his own last-ditch defense. _"THANOS RISES," _he hissed for Loki alone, hands reaching futilely for a pale neck. "_When he knows what you have become, you will BURN."_

On his last word, Manfredi was blown back a final time by a single lance of anger's power. Loki stepped forward and looked down at his dying handiwork, crumpled amidst scorched ruins. His voice remained conversational, hiding the fading fury. "Everything burns, little would-be Chitauri. Gods and kings and all mortal life can face the fire. But not me this day, and not at _that_ one's hands _ever_." He turned and calmly shut the door behind him as he went back down to the hangar proper to observe its splay of dead pilots dragged from broken planes.

. . .

The Hand still stood; armed, suffering few casualties, and without an enemy. "Well," Loki mused aloud as he scanned the group, the cut on his chin already looking an hour old. "The threat is duly lessened." He smiled, watching Triplett at the back of the group. The human knew. What little he thought he could do from there was beyond Loki's guess. He flickered his gaze to Tsurayaba next, his voice light and his mind sharp at work. "You kept your end of the bargain and the door is open. I suppose now we all go our separate ways."

Matsu'o Tsurayaba lifted both his hands, ungloved and flecked with soft false flesh and harder metal. They looked quite strong indeed. Manfredi's weak lunge was of no concern. The man's new hands – and the Hand behind him – could be far more threatening. "I could suggest a new bargain," said the ninja. Beside him was a plane that bore the marks of a man that could and did strip open its plating to expose the works within. It underlined the threat-as-offer. Triplett tensed again.

"Is this your honor, then?"

A slow pause. "What do you mean, Asgardian?"

"Is this your honor as a leader, a man that swears oaths in the heat of danger for the sakes of his people? Little truth to that if you strike now." He flickered his gaze to Triplett again, who was watching him carefully for a cue. He smiled, wide and easy. There would be no need for one if he played right and talked fast. "No one follows the king that reneges as soon as the rules can change in his favor; no traveler trusts the shifting wind."

Some of the Hand blinked. Doubt filled their faces as the words settled in and took hold. The tech stole an uncomfortable glance at Triplett, his expression that of a man who would not quickly forget a friendly act. Matsu'o's face hardened. "You dare?"

"I _question, _Tsurayaba. Vast difference." Loki shrugged. "Let us end at _detente_ this day alone, a breath between factions. To recover. Your men are safe, you've a single trophy if not the one you intended, and your weapons are diminished. We two are weary. Certainly, we can end this the way we thought it would begin. To what cost?" He spread his hands, shrugging affably. Now he pitched his voice low for Matsu'o alone. "Who among your men will die for the attempt to take me? What soldiers that you might have saved, had the day gone another way? I tell you, they will remember your choice and you'll pay that coin back another time... and pay dear. But don't believe me – who would? Look to your people and find your answer there."

Unwillingly, Matsu'o stepped back once and swept a speedy glance over his men. And then, seeing something true in the words, he took another step away from the battle's line between man and demigod. Loki allowed his tension to ease, none of it visible. The end of his one chance to avoid an outright fight – a fight that, in the position he currently held, could just possibly lose. Not just his own freedom at risk, but the life of Coulson's man. Like his own leader, Triplett proved himself too loyal and good-natured to avoid personal risk. Another coin at bet on the table, and he supposed he was not willing to pay that one, either.

Now to observe the final results of the dice.

Matsu'o focused his attention on the alien once more. And then he cut a curt, simple bow, his strong hands clasped together. "Another time, Loki of Asgard. On my honor."

He returned it, elegant and slow. "There's always another time," he said, and his eyes did not leave Tsurayaba's back until the Hand finished filing out of the facility.

. . .

Coulson's elbows were firm against his desk, thumbs pressed sharp into his temples and his palms against his eyes as he felt trapped in some quiet hell made of pure waiting. HomeSec was ready to go on his word – if Chicago had to get called down on an evac, the people of the city were prepped and they didn't even know it. They could save a lot of people fast. Not all of them. But enough to call it less than a complete loss, as the faceless Deustch described it.

That wasn't good enough. It would never be good enough. Until he got the word, any word from Montana, it was all he had. Acid burned hot in his stomach, eating all the nothings he could do to change the situation personally.

His skull thumped hard enough to dull the sound of his phone. He fumbled for it, pressed to his ear to hear Skye's fast rambling, and then sighed just once as the rushing relief smoothed his face. "Okay. That's it. We're good." His hand shook not at all when he put the phone down again, and it didn't shake when he picked up a pen to carve a single shallow line into his desk. The act put him at ease and he didn't know why.

He picked up the phone again, this time to spread some good news and to ask several parties to stand down. The rest he could clean up after. Talbot would believe this was all for nothing, he knew. Just a sham to buy back some rep. That was fine, Coulson decided, with only a little sour feeling for the man with a terrible military haircut.

It beat the alternative.


	15. epilogue - the two princes

epilogue – the two princes

. . .

No sketchy biker bar this time, no city park or bombed-out mansion. Loki shifted comfortably in the soft leather couch, the view of the expensive hotel room a fine and private one looking down on the neon-lined streets of Chicago itself. He'd had a hand in saving it, so he'd reckoned to the Director. He might as well take a gander at the place.

It was acceptably interesting for a cluster of humanity, he judged, and he supposed it ought as well thrive. Loki set down his drink, by now so disregarded that the melted ice thinned the alcohol. He regarded his visitor, a hand lifting up to rub at the scar on his chin that was now all but a ghost. By dawn it would be gone entirely. "You've won the day," he said, searching the human's distracted face. It seemed thinner to him this night. "The city stands and this nasty matter all but resolved and buried once more. Does this not please you?"

Coulson gave a small laugh, no humor in it. "All I can see is the next problem, Loki. The next fight." He picked up a book from the table and glanced at its painted cover without really seeing, then set it down again. He nudged at it occasionally as he talked. "I know what happened was the best possible outcome anyone could get. It's progress. We did what SHIELD does." He shook his head. "But I feel disconnected from it. I've got no happiness. Feel like I couldn't do enough. I just... wasn't there."

Loki watched him for a moment and then smiled with an odd and gleaming sort of understanding. "There's a price to pay for being a leader of men."

Coulson's brow furrowed at the words, pushing the book away. "Is that Asgardian wisdom?"

"Some film of yours called _Rob Roy_." Coulson lifted his head to give him a sideways look. Loki waved a hand, whisking his own words away to replace them. "Every leader faces lessons like these ones; harsh and unpleasant and never-ceasing. Uneasy lies the head, etcetera." The hand faltered and found its way to the couch's armrest. Coulson was still looking at him. "Little comfort there, of course."

"Don't know that I need comfort, Loki. I'm just tired and - I swear if this comes back to me I will end you – sometimes I think I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

Loki nodded, unruffled by the threat. He could see the meaning behind it, the defensiveness. Something undefinable crossed his face and he reached out for his drink once more. "I'll tell you a story, I think, since it might be of some worth to you. A fable, you must note; a fiction. And I'll only ever tell it once, so take heed and don't interrupt."

That did get the human's attention. Marking the man's weary and questioning eyes with his own, he talked.

. . .

"There was once a great kingdom set high among the stars, fine and ancient and undoubted in its power. And this place, of course, held safe a king within its vast golden halls. An old warrior fit to match his realm's strength and wisdom, his own story grown to mighty legend over countless centuries. And because of course such stories must hold to a kind of balance, this king had two sons – a golden prince, and a dark one.

"The golden prince was well-favored; in flesh a fine example of what you might picture this kingdom when it stands incarnate. He believed in strength and in honor, in the fire of the fight and the glory of song. All he did as he grew to adulthood, he did for his future's legend. For his own name to be remembered forever. No battle shrunk from, no quarter given, no beer untouched, and quick to anger when his idea of power was threatened. Strength... and honor. A simple but powerful road.

"The dark prince was quite the opposite in all ways. Where others saw only bones and blood, he saw numbers and odds marked in the gore. He saw the costs of war and and looked to ways to hedge those gambles. Where the golden prince spent elder days afield with the warriors, the dark one went to books and scholars and learned to hide his worries with a quick smile. And he grew to dislike simple strength, for he believed to his bones and soul that _leading _relied on such more cautious wisdoms. Not brute simplicity, not the focus on personal legend, which he felt was selfish and dangerous. To lead, he felt, required the noble acceptance of sacrifice; that the glory earned must be given to the people he watched over."

Loki paused, his gaze focusing on the here and now temporarily to note Coulson wanting to ask an obvious thing. He smiled to deflect it, continuing. "But of course the golden prince was the elder, and on the surface most desirable to the kingdom. They did not see the easy anger and the selfish immaturity that the golden prince held in those early days. And so the dark prince, not first in malice, strove to prove his method was the finer one. His first great plan would possibly cost the golden prince's place, but preferably not his life. The dark prince was not so far gone as that. Not yet.

"This plan worked well enough for a time. But in the midst of this came a small and private tragedy, as such fables are wont to carry with them. The dark one, briefly free from that brightly lit glow of his great and powerful kinsman, discovered a terrible thing. And now in that deeper gloom he found himself ensnarled within, he chose to cling hard and close to his beliefs for rescue. In a way, they were all he had. The only thing to keep him from breaking... or so he thought. A wise and quick observer might wonder if that break was already a fast fact, but this I cannot tell you for certain." He allowed a fleeting smile.

"And so believing, he eventually fell further away from the kingdom's lights - so far and so lost that for a time even the golden prince though the dark one dead. Now wholly alone in a grim place that was not death, the dark prince's beliefs redoubled in their fervor. That last armor of righteousness, his only defense. He _would _prove himself correct, answer his own siren's call to power. He would force the truth of wisdom, and he would become the noble king he thought he must be. To_ save_ that kingdom from its simple golden prince. One way... or another.

"So it came 'round one day, his greatest chance. And with a whisper and an illusion and an easy lie ready in his hands, he cast down the old king and wore that ancient face for his own for some time."

Loki paused to lift himself from the couch, moving to toss away the watered down drink and fill it with fresh and strong whiskey. With a gesture, he topped off Coulson's glass as well. He sat down again, still ignoring the human's unspoken questions. He'd set his rules, and he'd force that much until the tale was told.

"So it was that the kingdom was at last watched over wisely and well, as reckoned the masked prince in those first days – and no one questioned him or his rule. Having found his rightful place and his golden throne, he stretched himself to fit all of that old and sleeping king's shape.

"He ruled with what wisdom he could bring to bear, tried to do it rightly and in accordance of all he'd read. Tried to act with what he believed was a king's conscience while carefully watching his own tracks and plans. And in quick time, he learned why the old king must hold close the selfish luxury of sleep. The prince learned of true and utter exhaustion, and the thinness of spirit that came with trying to fit himself to another man's place instead of his own. He _tried_, I suppose we might put that kindly... though I wager it might be thought that the dark prince earned little kindness. And in time he began to falter and fade into those old darknesses.

"For you see he found in that hollow solitude the question you've already tried to ask – were not _both_ princes holding a shape of the truth firmly in their narrow grips? That for wisdom there must also be strength? That for sacrifice there might also be a place for selfishness? Neither is wholly true alone, but the _good _leader learns his own way between the two and many more besides. He knows that all such roads hold that eternal bone weariness. Oh yes, there is always a price. The old king surely knew this lesson well, having paid that toll a time or thrice himself. Perhaps that is why it was so easy for the prince to take his face. Perhaps through his son's treason, that old king gained some guiltless season of rest in the wake of hard griefs. But that is no part of this tale." He watched Coulson blink at him and he ignored that old, sick feeling in his own guts.

"The dark prince could not, ultimately, become the king he once dreamed of. For he lacked certain other lessons, kindly and merciful lessons that, much to his secret horror, he'd forced the golden prince to learn. And trapped in the needs of the kingdom, he could not learn such things quickly himself. So he struggled, but yet he ruled.

"In time the golden prince saw a crack; a flaw in the false king's plans. In time he found his way to the side of another that could _see _what no other could – a man that the dark prince had carefully hidden away for just this cause. Between these two and other allies aside, they shattered the dark prince's illusions and cast him down from his stolen place. The dark prince fled – to worlds between worlds, and to other stories besides.

"But a careful witness to the downfall, a _quick_ witness might have seen that the dark prince's claws were not sunk quite so deep into that throne's fine gold as you might once expect. That when he was pulled from that heavy cushioned seat, he just_ might_ have also pushed away with his own two legs. But this is of course whimsy and the uncertainty of old fable." He sighed, his voice drifting away from him into silence. He lifted his drink and took a heavier sip than he'd intended, grimacing at the sharp taste. "And so, the last great tumble of the dark prince, and the next rise of the rightful gold."

"Why didn't-" Coulson stopped himself and quickly edited his words on the fly. "Why didn't the other prince just walk away when he realized his mistakes?"

Loki lifted a single eyebrow and set the drink down again, touching a finger to his alcohol-stung lips. "How could he? He'd forged his life entire around this idea, this dream he'd held since infancy. When the walls of his identity broke, that dream was _all he had. _Now, there are some who have the strength to walk away, yes, to not be afraid of starting utterly anew. The prince, then, was not one of these."

"I almost feel bad for the guy," muttered Coulson.

"Well, don't bother." Loki shrugged, setting down the glass with a too-hard clink. "In the end, his choices were his responsibility. From the many terrible ones to the good, regardless of the roots and the pressures of others."

"I didn't say _forgive_ him. Just that I could probably scrounge up some sympathy."

Loki flapped a hand, disregarding the offering. "And thus his tale is ended. Nothing sturdy made of it, and a lone voice of pity in its wake. Tune in next time. Perhaps there'll be a thrilling dance number."

Coulson shook his head, absorbing the tale and storing much of it for later consideration. "I can't lead like any of that. It's not a kingdom I've got to watch over. I don't buy all the honor and cleverness stuff. And I can't be cruel."

"Nor should you try. It's the hard lessons they learned, not their methods that are of any worth here." Loki chuckled, low and dry. "You're a good and honest man, Coulson, may all the power of the universe save you from yourself. I think this is what that Fury saw in you, and believed his abandoned duty needed. But when I was held in a glass cage and left to think and to plan, I saw in him that other kind of necessity that I rather hope you will not ever need – the understanding that sometimes to lead, you _must_ be a rat bastard."

He lifted a finger to the thoughtful Coulson in a beckoning gesture. "But to earlier things, I suppose it _is _true. You have _other_ things to worry about."

Something in Loki's taunt made Coulson give him a sharp, careful look. "Such as?"

"Well, I'd say now you owe _me _a favor, by any metric." The pale face pulled into a slow and wry grin. It put the ice cube back down Coulson's spine to watch it spread.

Coulson blinked hard, his fingers unconsciously tightening around his glass. "Well, _that's_ a potential nightmare."

Loki said nothing more, letting his jackal's smile finish his tale for him.

. . .

"Sir!" The man bounced to his feet and raced to the man in the fine grey suit. "We've got a live one. Injured, but identifiable."

"Name?" Bakshi wasn't impressed yet and didn't bother to look up from his notes.

"Manfredi. The boss here."

Now _that _drew his attention. "Is he conscious?" A nod of assent. "Excellent. Let me see him."

At a sharp gesture, the loaded gurney tumbled down the ruined hangar towards him. Sunil Bakshi studied the ruined face. "We wanted to fly," whispered the man that was once Joseph Manfredi, fluid leaking from his eyes. "We can't hear the others anymore. We can't hear our God. Damn the prince. _Damn him_."

Bakshi smiled, false comfort. "Well, Mr. Manfredi, we can't have that. I'm sure we can do something for you, but first, you must answer my simple question."

The dark eyes blinked slowly, painfully.

"Are you ready to comply?"

A low, sobbing rasp of comprehension.

_"__Are you ready to comply?"_

. . .

Raina watched Matsu'o depart, her arms crossed tightly against her sleek blue dress. Ian Quinn sat quietly in the angular chair near her side, occasionally swishing the ice around in his drink and careful not to clink it too loudly. "I'm sorry that one didn't work out, babe. I really had hopes."

She shrugged once, light and indifferent. "He did the best he could. I understand the circumstances, Ian. I can't fault his choice, even if I can't be too happy about the outcome." She glanced at him without turning her head. "I'm not like some of our previous employers in that regard. I don't want to be."

He saluted her with his glass. "The pitfalls of leadership."

Raina favored him with a little smile, one that faded when he spoke again. "Transforming people into Chitauri, and they wind up drilling right down to the same plans and urges they had when they hit New York. Damn. Guess it's true, though. You can't go home again."

She looked away again, her lips tightening at the memories the line brought up. _But I need to. _Wordlessly, she left their tiny office and strode away, still thinking about the future and how to take control of it. Whether or not she ever had her hands on her Asgardian prize.

There was always more future to come. She lifted her head high and went to go look for it.

_~Fin~_

"_A crown is more discomfort than adornment." ~ The High King, by Lloyd Alexander_

. . .

_Jan 7__th__, 2015, MDS. All relevant rights remain in the hands of Marvel with no infringement intended. All realities are fair game. All half-mad demigods do whatever the hell they want._


End file.
